‘Call’: Two Couples and Night of Cliched Mishaps

What is the true meaning of love? What is the true meaning of manhood? What do women really want? Can men, especially when they’re bonding like the herd animals they are, ever drop their macho facades and treat their lovers with the sensitivity and respect that they truly deserve?

And, most important, will they be getting any tonight?

These are the burning questions posed by “Booty Call,” which wins the prize for least-subtle title of the year, and has a movie to match. Two male friends in hot pursuit of sexual relief run up against two female friends with their own ideas about courtship, class and safe sex. We’ve seen this kind of thing before, of course. We’ve just rarely seen it stripped down to its essence with such industrial efficiency.

Playing the four young urbanites on the “double date from hell” are four very talented people trapped in the script from hell. Jamie Foxx (“The Jamie Foxx Show”), who plays the in-your-face, anatomically obsessed Bunz, and Tommy Davidson (“Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls”), who’s the far more refined Rushon, are both graduates of “In Living Color” and are gifted comedians. Likewise, Vivica A. Fox (“Independence Day”) and Tamala Jones (TV’s “Dangerous Minds”), who play the upwardly mobile Lysterine and the sexually conservative Nikki, are quite capable of holding their own against the rapid-fire repartee of their co-stars.

But as the four wend their way through a night of cliched mishaps, New York stereotypes and the search for the perfect condom, the relentless humiliation visited upon the couples becomes more than a bit tiresome. And while most of the humor is unprintable, let us just say that Glad Wrap and surgical gloves will probably never again enjoy such innovative product placement.

Basically, Bunz and Rushon are derided for being male; sexual desperation isn’t a pretty thing. Lysterine and Nikki are depicted as harpies for insisting on some very basic bedroom precautions that the men should have taken care of beforehand. Stupidity isn’t all that funny. Neither are ethnic jokes, which are tossed off casually and somewhat cruelly.

It’s not that the movie is never funny. It’s just that you don’t feel very good when it is.

* MPAA rating: R for nonstop sexuality, including sex-related dialogue and crude humor, and for strong language. Times guideline: Humor is either sexual or ethnic or both, so film may be offensive to all ages.

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‘Booty Call’

Bunz: Jamie Foxx

Rushon: Tommy Davidson

Nikki: Tamala Jones

Lysterine: Vivica A. Fox

A Turman-Morrissey Co. production, released by Columbia Pictures. Director Jeff Pollack. Producer John Morissey. Screenwriters Takashi Bufford and Bootsie. Cinematography Ron Orieux. Editor Christopher Greenbury. Production designer Sandra Kybartas. Costume designer Vicki Graef. Art director Armando Sgrignuoli. Music Robert Folk. Running time: 1 hour, 17 minutes.

* In general release throughout Southern California.