All things considered, \Man of the House"" could have been worse. What started off as a bloodbath with Tommy Lee Jones donning a cowboy hat and police badge to shoot at some guy lighting things on fire evolved into an unmoving plot about how a bunch of hot cheerleaders saw some guy shoot some other guy and now someone's trying to kill them.
However, while invoking a star character strikingly reminiscent of the angry parole officer in ""Double Jeopardy"" and the angry agent in ""Men in Black,"" the film becomes more bearable as one sits through the entire thing. Once it can be resolved that, yes, the cheerleaders are stereotypical dim-wits with big, fake assets and token slutty personas, and, yes, it involves a story so overdone it can no longer be considered a real plot, ""Man of the House"" hits a vaguely inspiring note on the staff of movies meant to be rented on boring, rainy days and not necessarily witnessed in the theater.
Roland Sharp (Tommy Lee Jones), the Texas Ranger and divorced father in a bad relationship with his daughter, is assigned to guard the University of Texas cheerleading squad after they witness the murder of a key witness in a trial involving a big-shot drug lord. Cedric the Entertainer provides minimal purpose as the funny, just-out-of-jail reverend of a particularly interesting Texas church, and while he is key to providing some laughs (as in the rare scenes of his over-zealous preaching techniques and a really bad dance-off between him and the cheerleaders in the same church), the role is completely expendable to the plot. It's almost too easy to speculate that he was written in strictly to draw a crowd to a movie that otherwise falls into the tweenie cheerleader genre with a brutal, bloody, criminal twist. While it's annoying, this strategy has worked before-reminiscent of comedian Bernie Mac being thrown into the role of Bosley after Bill Murray backed out of ""Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle.""
Despite being laden with stereotypes as thick as Tommy Lee Jones' southern accent, ""Man of the House"" has a little bit of warmth and even its moments as a somewhat delightful comedy. During a scene when the cheerleaders prepare Sharp for his date with a local professor, there is a kind of likeable humor to the whole thing. The same goes for the semi-inspirational monologuing of the head cheerleader, played by R&B-artist-turned-actress Christina Milian, when she lectures our seemingly apathetic Texas Ranger on the universal importance of cheerleaders of all kinds, all around the world and in all aspects of living. There are all kinds of character development floating around somewhere amid the current Hollywood custom of blowing stuff up and hot chicks prancing around in their underwear.
Ultimately, the whole throw-out plot involving cops and bombs blowing up vans and witnesses being killed before they can testify really isn't what does it for this flawed-but altogether bearable-movie about cheerleaders and a bad-ass Texas Ranger.
