Starring Jamie Foxx, Tommy Davidson, Vivica A. Fox and Tamala Jones Directed by Jeff Pollack Rated R, with explicit sexual language, profanity, nudity and comic violence Running time 77 minutes Jack gives this film a rating of 7 out of 10

(Feb. 27, 1997) -- Booty Call is an elaborate commercial for safe sex, wrapped in the garb of a bawdy sex farce. Actually, "bawdy" hardly covers it. It's low-brow, earthy, profane, crude, shameless, sexist, irreverent and, as it happens, pretty darn funny.

I feel a little guilty about confessing that it made me laugh out loud. The story takes place over the course of one night, when Rushon (Tommy Davidson) determines that the time has come for his relationship with Nikki (Tamala Jones) to reach the bedroom phase.

Nikki is trying to keep him at bay, so she brings along her friend Lysterine (Vivica A. Fox) as protection, as a blind date for Rushon's buddy Bunz (Jamie Foxx).

Nikki's resistance finally collapses, but she's well-schooled in safe-sex techniques and keeps sending the men out on supply expeditions that turn into disasters. By the end of the night, the party has moved to a hospital. The star here is Bunz, a trash-talking skunk, half mutton-head and half alley cat. And he is one funny man, thanks to Jamie Foxx's quick wit and nearly deadpan delivery.

Davidson, no slouch in the comic department, plays the straight man, more or less, in this sexcapade tag-team. Vivica A. Fox shows fine comic instincts as the blind date who is something more than she seems at first blush, and Jones holds her own within the comic crew.

The characters are front-line soldiers in the battle of the sexes, and the hostilities get pretty unrestrained sometimes. The barrage of insults across gender lines is saved from turning into simple mean spirits by its free-swinging comic attitude. Director Jeff Pollack and the script by Takashi Bufford and Bootsie also keeps the players strung together by their underlying affection for one another.

But when the movie pushes toward racial stereotypes, the effect is sometimes embarrassing; Gedde Watanabe -- Sixteen Candles, Gung Ho -- deserves better than stereotypical gay waiter he's given to play here.