Karyn Parsons and Tim Meadows in "The Ladies Man."

MOVIE INFORMATION

With 10 as a must-see, we give this film an: Stars: Tim Meadows, Karyn Parsons and Billy Dee Williams Director: Reginald Hudlin Rated: R, with profanity, nudity and violence Length: 90 minutes

ROCHESTERCRITIQUE

Having seen this film, how would you rate it? 10 5 9 4 8 3 7 2 6 1

By Marshall Fine
Gannett News Service

(October 13, 2000) -- You don't have to be preacquainted with Leon Phelps to appreciate the jokes in The Ladies Man.

An offshoot of a character created for weekly skits on Saturday Night Live, The Ladies Man is often raunchy, frequently silly and surprisingly funny.

Not all the jokes work in this film by director Reginald Hudlin (House Party) and the plot could most charitably be described as haphazard. But thanks to Tim Meadows' playfully affectionate take on this sex-happy reprobate, The Ladies Man offers enough genuine laughs to help you through the slow patches.

Leon is a Chicago talk-radio host, a late-night love doctor whose post-midnight timeslot doesn't shield him from complaints to the FCC. Most of these come from his boss (Eugene Levy), who vows to fire him at the next FCC fine.

Leon's on-air expertise would appear to be derived from '70s blaxploitation films like The Mack -- and his own amorous adventures. A walking mannequin for the '70s most noticeable couture, Phelps has incredibly ham-handed patter and a beguiling lisp (to go with his mile-high Afro) that seems to drive women wild.

The film's story, its weakest element, follows Leon and his producer, Julie (Karyn Parsons), after his inability to reduce his sexy patter gets them both fired. They make the rounds looking for jobs and even land one -- at a religious station, where Leon's first on-air encounter is an interview with a nun headed for, as she puts it, "a missionary position":

"And how long have you been nunning it up?" Leon asks, trying to play it straight.

Unemployed once again, Leon decides to do what he always does in crucial moments: Have sex, and wait for a random stroke of fate to determine his future. It comes, in the form of a letter from a rich former girlfriend, who offers to marry him -- but signs her letter "Sweet Thing," leading to confusion about her identity.

While the dim but persistent Leon goes hunting for his potential benefactor, he is being stalked by a posse with vengeance on its mind. The vigilantes share a common, humiliating bond: Each man's wife has been unfaithful with Leon, whom the husbands know only from the happy-face tattoo on his posterior they've all seen running from their homes.

Indeed, the film's funniest, oddest moment comes when this lynch-mob bursts into a spontaneous musical number complete with choreography, sort of like The Jet Song in West Side Story. Led by Will Farrell, as an oddly sensitive devotee of Greco-Roman wrestling, it's a scene of inspired silliness that pops up out of nowhere.

Otherwise, the jokes all seem to stem from Leon's hyperbolic sense of his own sexuality. The way Meadows says the word "ladies" seems to delight his tongue in the same way as his ever-present snifter of Courvoisier. He's like a human incarnation of one of Barry White's cheesier songs, a love god who is constantly on call, even when the ladies don't know they're supposed to be calling.

Billy Dee Williams is on hand as the owner of Leon's favorite bar (and as the film's narrator), while Parsons (of TV's Fresh Prince of Bel Air) brings a playful seriousness to Julie, who gradually begins to realize there's a human heart beating beneath all that polyester.

The Ladies Man may be the funniest film out of the SNL factory (now formally known as SNL Studios) since Wayne's World. It's dumb but consistently agreeable.