You Know the Steps to This Tango

Matthew Perry is one of those actors who has one great strength but is usually forced to milk it to the bone because it's the only real strength he has. In Perry's case, that particular ability is sarcasm; he excels at dishing out ridicule, firing one cutting remark after another, all the while wrapping his acerbic barbs in self-deprecation. Perry's got great timing and a needling delivery, and these qualities have helped make his Chandler Bing the most consistently funny and engaging character on "Friends" for the last five years. And Perry is an ideal sitcom actor--his playful banter and caustic wisecracks are perfectly suited to a medium that thrives on one-liners. But Perry is still trying to find his niche as a movie star. Almost Heroes was a total dud, and his Fools Rush In would more accurately be interpreted as a euphemism for moviegoers who had to sit through it.

In Three To Tango, Perry's latest crack at big-screen stardom, the actor finds himself paired oh-so-cutely with Neve Campbell, an actress who has a become a bit of an enigma herself. Too mature to continue dabbling in teen flicks but still too young and cherubic to be taken seriously in adult fare, Campbell has shifted into that rare phase of an acting career in which she doesn't quite seem to fit in anywhere. Poor Neve. First she was abused all last season on "Party of Five," and now she's stuck in acting limbo. She's in danger of becoming the female Chris O'Donnell--part girl, part woman and hard up for roles that really serve her talents (although I give her a great deal of credit for Wild Things, one of the unsung gems of 1998).

In Three to Tango, Perry plays Oscar Novak, a slightly neurotic architect who, along with his flamboyant partner Peter (Oliver Platt), is on the cusp of landing a major restoration project that could ignite his professional career. First though, he must win the confidence of self-absorbed millionaire Charles Newman (Dylan McDermott--all GQ cover, no personality), a powerful tycoon with the face of an underwear model and the disposition of a shark. Charles has a wife. He also has a mistress named Amy (Campbell), an energetic, free-spirited artist who specializes in glass sculptures. Charles is the jealous type and he wants Oscar to keep an eye on Amy and make sure she stays out of trouble, mainly because he is under the impression that Oscar is gay. Oscar is straight, of course (are we laughing yet?), but he is forced to continue the ruse as he finds himself falling in love.

Three to Tango is a piece of pure-grade Hollywood cotton candy. Initially light and wispy, the film goes down easily until it grows a little too sticky, a little too sweet, and a little too nausea-friendly. It's pleasantly diverting, but it's also thoroughly disposable and bound to flitter out of your mind ten minutes after leaving the theater. It's a bit of a shame, because Three to Tango could have been a sweetly agreeable bit of fluff if its story wasn't so darn predictable. The film offers up a fairly tired plot, but then so did Deep Blue Sea, and I enjoyed every moment of that because it did such a good job of subverting its own genre. Director Damon Santostefano shows little creative flair, however, and spends most of his time desperately trying to find a comic tone, shifting between broad slapstick and homosexual farce.

As for Perry and Campbell, they pull off the improbable task of both holding individual appeal despite failing to generate the slightest spark of chemistry. Campbell can always fall back on her natural sweetness to keep herself afloat, but she seems somewhat miscast here and never much rises above the level of serviceable. Perry, saddled with a ridiculous shaggy dog hairdo, has an even tougher time as he's called upon to carry the film without his greatest asset. Drained of his biting sarcasm, Perry is forced to rely on his slight natural charms and although he manages to be likable in a bland sort of way, he doesn't have the necessary range to support the story. It's of little consequence however-even if the two actors had clicked, there's not enough material to work with. Three to Tango is certainly watchable but it's the Hollywood equivalent of an assembly-line product-a by-the-numbers creation with too much surface value and not enough heart.