‘Tango’ Loses Its Balance in Romantic Comedy Formula

Hollywood romantic comedies, like horror films, ask of audiences a certain amount of, shall we say, laxity, as a matter of course. The Cute First Encounter, the Horrible Misunderstanding That Threatens to Tear Our Couple Apart, the Closing Sweet Embrace--these all are conventions that must be shoe-horned into plots that the marketplace demands while at the same time carrying at least a hint of freshness. These competing requirements--genre cliches versus the appearance of novelty--aren’t easy to reconcile. In the wrong hands, the results can be regrettable.

Take “Three to Tango.”

The filmmakers seem to know intellectually what is required and they touch all the proper bases. The movie’s basic premise isn’t new--24 years ago “Shampoo” turned a similar scenario into a multilayered social critique--but it’s enough time so that “Tango’s” target audience might think it is watching something inventive. And in Matthew Perry and Neve Campbell the film has leads who have limitations as actors but who are attractive, not to mention familiar to that oh-so-valuable young demographic because of their TV shows, “Friends” and “Party of Five,” respectively.

But first-time director Damon Santostefano and screenwriters Rodney Vaccaro and Aline Brosh McKenna trip themselves up constantly. It’s hard to tell whether the problem was that they weren’t thinking or that they were thinking too hard about all the wrong things.

Oscar (Perry) and Peter (Oliver Pratt) are struggling architects. They’re competing for a $90-million contract from rich slimeball Charles Newman (Dylan McDermott, from TV’s hot drama “The Practice”), who mistakenly believes Oscar is gay. Thinking him “safe,” the married Newman enlists him to spy on his mistress, Amy (Campbell). Need we say Oscar and Amy fall in love?

The Big Complication is that Amy, too, believes Oscar is gay. And so they both are in pain, she because she thinks their love is doomed to go forever unrequited, he because he’s afraid of losing the contract and so puts up with being treated like a platonic pal while watching Amy frolic with Newman.

Left unexplained is why Amy, a bohemian artist who cares nothing for money, would look twice at the handsome but obviously heartless Newman. Or why she so immediately pursues a friendship with Oscar, who is extraordinarily tongue-tied and klutzy during their first meeting. Or why, besides the requirements of the plot, she’d want to move into Oscar’s apartment when she gets evicted, even though she barely knows him.

Rather than deal with these implausibilities, the filmmakers stuff the movie with mindless slapstick, even though Santostefano shows no particular feel for staging it and none of the lead actors has a facility for it. Typical of this movie’s cluelessness is the way it cavalierly traffics in stereotypes. The movie has one speaking part of consequence for a black male. Guess which character is a professional ballplayer renowned for the size of his sexual organ? And the one Asian with a speaking role is a cabdriver who doesn’t speak English.

Also, for a movie that deals with issues of sexual identity and contains a couple of speeches about the importance of self-acceptance, the movie is curious in its treatment of gays. Pratt’s foppish gay architect--he’s essentially assigned the role of sidekick--is an excitable hand-waver. When one macho seemingly straight character is revealed as gay, he suddenly turns prissy in a way we’re supposed to think is funny.

Perry’s anxious-but-ordinary guy role isn’t much of a stretch from Chandler on “Friends”--but what’s with that hairstyle?--but Campbell isn’t the least bit persuasive as a lonely, unconventional artist. One suspects the fault lies more with the writing and directing than with her. She seems to have been directed, like the other actors, to project adorableness. Despite an annoyingly chirpy voice, she succeeds, especially when she crinkles her eyes and flashes her brilliant, toothy grin. But a little of that goes a long way.

As for McDermott, he must have it in all of his contracts that he gets filmed in frequent close-up, the better to execute his patented McDermott Stare, where he lowers his chin and gazes smolderingly into the camera. It’s a bit much, but when he’s not striking poses he gets laughs with his character who’s so bad that if he had a mustache, he’d spend the entire movie twirling it.

* MPAA rating: PG-13 for sex-related situations and language. Times guidelines: lots of crude sex talk all around.

‘Three to Tango’

Matthew Perry: Oscar Novak

Neve Campbell: Amy Post

Dylan McDermott: Charles Newman

Oliver Pratt: Peter Steinberg

A Warner Bros. presentation, in association with Village Roadshow Pictures and Village-Hoyts Film Partnership, of an Outlaw production. Director Damon Santostefano. Producers Bobby Newmyer, Jeffrey Silver, Bettina Sofia Viviano. Executive producers Lawrence B. Abramson and Bruce Berman. Story Rodney Vaccaro. Screenplay Vaccaro and Aline Brosh McKenna. Cinematographer Walt Lloyd. Production designer David Nichols. Editor Stephen Semel. Music Graeme Revell. Running time: 1 hour, 38 minutes.

In general release.