Saturday, November 24, 2018

A Little TLC(w): Tom, Dick, and Hairy (1993)


This feels like a fairly typical guy-focused buddy/romantic comedy, but although most of its beats are pretty obvious and some of the humor gets overly bro-y, I do enjoy it.  The characters, while familiar archetypes, are entertaining and have good chemistry among one another.

A trio of roommates navigate the highs and lows of the dating scene.  There’s Tom, a sentimental, mostly-responsible guy with a long-term girlfriend he may be marrying, more than any other reason, because it’s less work than not marrying her.  Dick is a laidback womanizer who has a standing arrangement with a sex buddy to be his “midnight call” on any night when he can’t secure another girl.  The third roommate, alternately called both Hairy and Giorgio, is as over-eager as he is awkward, desperate for any girl who’s willing to give him a change – if only he could find one.

It’s a very trite story and set-up.  A shallow fiancĂ©e, an escort with a heart of gold, a hard-up geek, a guy having the hots for his best friend’s sister – it’s a regular sex-comedy bingo.  As usual, I’m annoyed by cheating being sold as romantic (it’s fine if someone else is the one for you, but not if you keep stringing along the one you’re with now,) and no one sees anything off about the great lengths Tom goes to to “protect” his sister from Dick, at odds with how approving he is of all of Dick’s other conquests.

But despite the predictability and the annoying/sexist tropes, I enjoy it for what it is.  The three guys may be well-worn types, but each plays his part well, and their friendship feels authentic.  What’s more, even though there’s a fair amount of sexism in the guys’ attitudes and behavior, most of the main female characters are given some agency and allowed to be interesting individually and supportive of one another.

The other Tony Leung, Tony Leung Ka-fai, is in this movie, playing Dick.  He’s the only other cast member I’m familiar with, but pretty much everybody does a nice job.  I especially enjoy Ann Bridgewater as Cat and Athena Chu as Tom’s sister Pearl.

Tony Leung Chiu-wai, meanwhile, plays Tom.  Although all three guys are funny, Tom is more of the straight-man role, the “regular guy” who offsets the comparative broadness of his two friends.  Tom is mostly decent and frequently well-intentioned, but his fatal flaw is a tendency to just go along with things.  Sometimes, this means tacitly enabling bad behavior, and at others, it means staying in the wrong situation because he doesn’t want to take the risk he’d require to change his circumstance.

Certainly, not the most complex role out there, but I still like it.  Tom is sort of a grounding presence at the center of the film, and even as you urge him to step up, it’s because you want to see him coming through for himself.  Oh, and in the second half of the movie, a song performed (I’m pretty sure) by both Tony Leungs serves as the soundtrack for a party scene.  I know that Tony Leung Chiu-wai, at different times, has been a recording artist in Hong Kong, but it’s not too often that I get the chance to actually hear him sing.

Recommend?

In General – I might.  It’s not the best, but it’s an amusing way to spend an hour-and-a-half.

Tony Leung Chiu-wai – Maybe.  Leung is a big enough star and has played enough major roles that I can afford to be choosy, but I don’t always need to be.  This is a nice romantic-lead comedy performance.

Warnings

Sexual content (including some homophobic humor and a few fantasy scenes of the guys in bald caps “playing” their own penises,) language, a little violence, and drinking/smoking.

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