Main cast: Matthew Perry (Oscar Novak), Neve Campbell (Amy Post), Dylan McDermott (Charles), John C McGinley (Strauss), Bob Balaban (Decker), Deborah Rush (Lenore), o (Olivia Newman), Rick Gomez (Rick), Patrick Van Horn (Zack), David Ramsey (Bill), Barbara Gordon (Jenny Novak), and Oliver Platt (Peter)
Director: Damon Santostefano
Some movies need to go all-the-way in the offensive to be effective. This movie chickens out and hence ends up ridiculously under-baked. I believe quite a few practitioners of alternative sexual lifestyles will end up offended too.
Oscar and Peter are architects hoping to get a ninety-million dollar contract from billionaire Charles. When Charles assume Oscar is gay (through some contrived misunderstandings), he asks Oscar to chaperone his mistress Amy around town. Oscar agrees, falls in love with Amy, gets mistaken by the whole world as gay, and I fall asleep.
This movie says it’s alright to be gay, but it shows otherwise. Of course, it makes fun of heterosexuals’ fear of homosexuals as well, but this movie doesn’t dare to do anything more than to poke timid fun. Hence, it ends up even more insulting, because its jokes are puerile, juvenile, and banal.
Amy is the most interesting character, sly, mischievous, and alluring. Oscar is an idiot, period, with Matthew Perry playing him like a castrated, screaming, brainless twit. Heterosexuals should be embarrassed to admit Oscar as a member of their club, while I’m sure many homosexuals would be sighing in relief. The joke’s on all of us, because Oscar is a disgrace both intellectually and sexually.
I wish this movie is one of those small-budgeted European sex farce that won’t chicken out when it addresses the sexual politics in today’s society. Imagine the fun if Oscar is bisexual and starts freaking out when he finds himself attracted to Charles. By making Oscar a straightforward all-heterosexual twit, the movie already has boxed itself into a corner marked Limited, lame joke repertoire. Now, if this movie is made by an arty fellow, I may get to see Dylan McDermott in tight red bikini briefs instead of it being mentioned in passing.
Three to Tango isn’t romantic, funny, or daring. Good movies may offend but they should also make the offended think. I doubt this movie can make anyone, offended or otherwise, think of anything except a desire to never see Matthew Perry on the big screen ever again.
