Man of the House

Review by Richard Lee

Sony Pictures Home Entertainment / 2005 / 100 Minutes / Rated PG-13
Street Date: July 19, 2005

Specifications:
-DVD-Video
-DVD-9
-Region 1

Aspect Ratio:
-2.35:1 Anamorphic Widescreen
-1.33:1 Full Screen

Audio:
-English 5.1
-French 2.0

Subtitles:
-English
-French
-Off

Main Menu:
-Play Movie
-Languages
-Scene Selections
-Special Features
-Previews

Special Features:
-Cheer Camp
-The Making of “Man of the House”
-Previews

Not to be confused with 1995’s “Man of the House” with Chevy Chase and Jonathan Taylor Thomas, this version, which was originally titled “Cheer Up”, features leathery-faced Tommy Lee Jones as hardened Texas Ranger Roland Sharp, a role very reminiscent of his other U.S. marshal character Sam Gerard from “The Fugitive” and its weak follow-up “U.S. Marshals”. As the picture begins, Marshal Sharp is in pursuit of a key witness in a high-profile criminal court case. Unfortunately, after a bad turn of events, his partner is badly wounded and the key witness is brutally murdered and the only eyewitnesses who saw the killer are five Texas Longhorn cheerleaders. This sets up the bulk of this comedy where Sharp is assigned to be the protector of these cheerleaders while holed up in a make-shift frat house. While the movie unfolds, the girls learn to put up with his disciplinary ways and Sharp, in turn, learns from the girls to be a better parent to his estranged daughter and to communicate better with females in general.

With logic and reality cast to the wind, this is an agreeable and somewhat entertaining time filler with plenty of eye-candy for the guys and Tommy Lee for the ladies. His deadpan performance is almost completely straight-faced throughout the picture and that’s how the comedy emerges; with chaos erupting all around while he remains the straight man; much like his character Kay from the “Men in Black” movies. The cheerleaders are well-cast with Christina Milian as the group captain, Paula Garces, Vanessa Ferlito, Monica Keena, and Kelli Garner who has the funniest role as the girl who harbors a crush on the much older Ranger Sharp. Other supporting roles are rounded out with Cedric the Entertainer as an ex-con turned funky minister, Anne Archer as a literature professor who takes a liking to Tommy Lee’s character, and Brian Van Holt as an F.B.I. agent who doesn’t have the girls’ best interests at heart. 

Picture Quality:

Presented in 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen, the transfer is nicely done given it only takes up one layer of the disc; the other layer being devoted to the unnecessary full screen, pan and scan option. Dark tones are nice and solid during night and dimly-lit scenes while the oranges and whites of the Texas Longhorn football game come blazing through with rich, deep hues.

Audio Quality:

The only action sequences in this movie are at the beginning and near the end. Surrounds and spatial directionality are well-defined with bullets flying and flames raging; one car explosion and bus crash near the end of the movie are the only times the LFE channel comes alive. The soundtrack includes many songs by country rock bands and they generally sound vibrant in the surround mix.

Special Features:

“Cheer Camp” is a five minute featurette that shows how the actresses, who all claim to have no cheerleading experience, get into shape with dance routines and in-the-air tosses; Monica Keena is especially stressed-out with the toss-ups.

“The Making of Man of the House” is the standard behind-the-scenes featurette with cast and crew interviews. Most interesting is the fact that the story was originally set with Tommy Lee as an F.B.I. agent in Virginia until he suggested to the producers to take a tour of his home state of Texas. I guess that’s one of the reasons why he gets one of the executive producing credits for this movie.

“Previews” include trailers for “Lords of Dogtown”, “Bewitched”, “Stealth”, “Zathura”, “Hitch”, “Seinfeld”, “Guess Who”, “D.E.B.S.”, “XXX: State of the Union”, and “Boogeyman”.