Full Review

Considering its forced crude humor, pointless plot and uniformly embarrassing performances, it is not all that difficult to figure out why director David Zucker waited three years to release his execrable screwball comedy: He was simply waiting for "Gigli" to hit the theaters in order to avoid the distinction of having made the worst film of the year.

Current "It Guy" Ashton Kutcher plays Tom Stansfield, an office lackey at a Chicago publishing house. Ripe for promotion to the creative department and desperate to ingratiate himself with Lisa (Tara Reid), the daughter of the company's imperious honcho, Jack Taylor (Terence Stamp), Tom signs up to housesit their palatial home for a night.

Before leaving him alone, Taylor gives Tom the low-down of "dos" and "don'ts," including a pro-forma prohibition against house guests. Taylor also leaves him with detailed instructions about caring for his most prized possession, an owl named O.J., to be followed to the letter on pain of death and termination of employment.

By this point, it becomes clearly evident that the only persons who should have been fired -- as well as drawn and quartered -- are the director and screenwriter of this witless waste of 90 minutes.

Housesitting duty quickly becomes a slapstick exercise in damage control as every one of Taylor's rules is summarily broken. The home is invaded by a parade of uninvited guests, among them Taylor's drug-dealer son, Red (Andy Richter), one of Red's thug associates (Michael Madsen), and a disgruntled employee Taylor recently axed (Molly Shannon), along with her trailer-trash posse -- including Carmen Electra, whose sole reason for being in the film is a gratuitous wet T-shirt shot. In the ensuing madness O.J. manages to get high on cocaine and flies the coop -- literally.

All this is -- at least in theory -- supposed to be the perfect recipe for some hilarious situations, when in actuality the bone-headed script is merely an armature on which to hang one vulgar scene after another, involving sex, drugs and other staples of the "Big Book of Frat House Humor," including making light of rape, physical abuse of women and a particularly tasteless scene where Madsen urinates all over Taylor's living room.

During one of these sophomoric episodes, in which Lisa performs a striptease routine for Tom, Reid exclaims, "This is embarrassing, I can't believe you made me do this" -- a line perhaps directed at her agent.

Compounding its offensive vulgarities and pervasive, lowest-common-denominator humor is the film's PG-13 rating, whose "some material may be inappropriate for children under 13" monition is the most appallingly understated warning since tobacco companies agreed to caution consumers that "smoking may be hazardous to your health."

In an unintentional moment of clarity Reid's character announces that "tonight was one big mistake"; so was this film.

Due to pervasive crude and sex-related humor, including a scene with partial rear nudity, recurring drug abuse and much vulgar language, as well as an instance of rough language and profanity, the USCCB Office for Film & Broadcasting classification is O -- morally offensive. The Motion Picture Association of America rating is PG-13 -- parents are strongly cautioned. Some material may be inappropriate for children under 13.

These movies have been evaluated for artistic merit and moral suitability by the media reviewing division of Catholic News Service. The reviews include the CNS rating, the Motion Picture Association of America rating, and a brief synopsis of the movie.

The classifications are as follows:

A-I -- general patronage;
A-II -- adults and adolescents;
A-III -- adults;
L -- limited adult audience, films whose problematic content many adults would find troubling. L replaces the previous classification, A-IV.
O -- morally offensive.

Note: Some movies previously were designated A-IV. Older films with this classification should be regarded as classified L.