Director Walt Becker re-teams with his Road Hogs star and apparent muse John Travolta for another execrable entry in the aging boomer buddy “comedy” genre. Travolta smarms it up as Charlie, the babe-bagging counterpoint to Robin Williams’s earnest sad sack Dan, who mopes about failed love and takes off his shirt way too much.
The two sports marketers are gunning for a big Japanese account when Dan’s former fling (Kelly Preston) shows up, tells him that he’s the father of her seven-year-old twins (Conner Rayburn and Travolta’s daughter Ella Bleu), and dumps the office-upending kids on him for two weeks. From there, the cringingly unfunny fart, crotch, and urine gags uncork at 15-minute intervals; racist and homophobic jokes — an inspired contrast to the violin-backed family values crap — are equally well paced.
The only amusing scenes involve facial paralysis and a gorilla. Yet the film is notable for being Bernie Mac’s last. Too bad it’s not Becker’s.
