A word of advice if you pick Tomcats from the shelves of your video store. Don't look at the cover. It looks so terribly like a poor American Pie gross-out cash in, and I'm sure the back will have many glowing plaudits from such luminary sources as the Daily Star, complete with an insane number of exclamation marks. Indeed, for the opening 10 minutes or so I was convinced that was exactly what I was in for, with juvenile humour, over-enthusiastic acting and, well, just plain bad jokes.
But by the end I was more than pleased that I rode the initial choppy moments, because Tomcats completely blindsided me by turning into a damn funny movie. It wasn't all juvenile body humour either, including some regular farce and also Hot Shots! style lampooning of other movies.
The concept is that a group of testosterone fueled single guys, mourning the loss of one of their number to matrimony, agree to each put a small amount of money into a shared investment every year, with the last man remaining unmarried getting the jackpot. A few years later, only two singles remain; and a gambling debt means one is desperate to win, so makes it his mission to sucker the other guy into marriage.
None of the cast are stellar, in fact all the ladies are fine looking but with little to no ability. What is important is that the jokes do slowly sort themselves out into some absolute corkers. A pleasantly surprising little comedy. |
