# Three to Tango (1999)

### reviewed by
Ian Waldron-Mantgani

     Three to Tango     1/2

Rated on a 4-star scale Screening venue: Odeon (Liverpool City Centre) Released in the UK by Warner Bros. on June 30, 2000; certificate 12; 98 minutes; country of origin USA; aspect ratio 1.85:1

Directed by Damon Santostefano; produced by Bobby Newmyer, Jeffrey Silver, Bettina Sofia Viviano. Written by Aline Brosh McKenna, Rodney Vaccaro. Photographed by Walt Lloyd; edited by Stephen Semel.

    CAST.....
    Matthew Perry..... Oskar Novak
    Neve Campbell..... Amy Post
    Dylan McDermott..... Charles Newman
    Oliver Platt..... Peter Steinberg
    Cylk Cozart..... Kevin Cartwright
    John C. McGinley..... Strauss
    Bob Babalan..... Decker
    Deborah Rush..... Lenore

I've had slightly over a week to consider "Three to Tango", and the realisation hits me that it must not be called useless. This is a movie that will satisfy the curiosity of anyone wondering what it's like to be stuck in the cold next to a drunken alien at a bus stop for an hour and a half, who laughs at his own bad jokes despite the fact they don't have logical progression or punch lines.

I myself have never fantasised about that particular experience, and therefore found the movie an ordeal. The plot has nothing to do with aliens, but might as well have done, so strange are the actions of its humans. Matthew Perry stars as Oskar Novak, an architect asked by a millionaire client (Dylan McDermott) to make sure his mistress (Neve Campbell) doesn't get up to any mischief when out of sight. McDermott feels safe in this because he thinks that Perry is gay.

What we have here is yet another example of what James Blish called the Idiot Plot -- a story that would be over in a second if anybody in it had an inkling of brainpower. Dialogue tortuously contrives to avoid stumbling on the obvious truth that Perry ain't homosexual. McDermott and Campbell inexplicably laugh him off when he tries to clear matters up. And then later Perry gives a newspaper interview about the difficulties of being a gay professional -- why??

Much of the humour in "Three to Tango" is based around misunderstandings. Aside from the central dilemma, there are countless scenes where people mistake innocent suggestions for sexual propositions, such as when a secretary overhears Perry and his business associate (Oliver Platt) tell each other "We're partners, and proud of it!", or Perry when idly asks a guy at a party "What are you doing later?" Ho, ho, ho. This sort of thing could have been made funny in the 1930s, when there was more of a naivete to cinema, but now that trends of filmmaking and acting edge so much closer to realism, onscreen stupidity is rarely amusing and often embarrassing.

Nothing in "Three to Tango" makes sense. It's weird. Perry gets home to find Platt dancing around his apartment, sniffing his fingers and displaying a spiky hairdo. "What are you doing?" Perry asks. Platt's answer: "I was bored!" Previously, we opened on shot of them walking down a street chanting animal noises, to psyche themselves up for work. The most inane moment comes when Perry runs through town, chickens are thrown at him from offscreen, by no one, for no reason. He stops, looks at the camera, and carries on running. What was going on in the mind of the director when he ordered those chickens thrown? Did he really think it would have us rolling in the ailes?

I will resist making a cheap crack about the main actors being television stars, because they've done good work in movies before, and there's just no opportunity for them to breathe life into this indefensible material. One more oddity to wonder about, though: where does the title come from? There are either two or five main characters, depending on how you look at it, but not three. I can picture the story conferences, where savvy executives no doubt realised that if they were going to greenlight a project in which nothing made sense, it couldn't do any more harm to name it after an unrelated song.

COPYRIGHT(c) 2000 Ian Waldron-Mantgani http://members.aol.com/ukcritic

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