Man of the House (2005 film)

Man of the House is a 2005 American crime comedy film directed by Stephen Herek. The film stars Tommy Lee Jones as Roland Sharp, a lonesome Texas Ranger who goes undercover as an assistant coach to protect a group of college cheerleaders who have witnessed a murder. Much of the film was shot in Austin, Texas on the University of Texas campus.
Texas Governor Rick Perry has a cameo appearance in the film as himself. Released on February 25, 2005, the film received negative reviews, and grossed just $21 million against a budget of $40 million, making it a box office disappointment.
Texas Rangers Roland Sharp and Maggie Swanson question Percy Stevens about the whereabouts of his former prison cellmate Morgan Ball, needed to testify against organized crime boss John Cortland.
Tracking down Ball to a warehouse, Ball tries to bribe Sharp with a key. Instead, he takes it and forces him outside, to awaiting FBI agent Eddie Zane. A sniper wounds Swanson, giving Ball a chance to escape (Swanson is shot in the chest, but survives). A group of cheerleaders from the University of Texas at Austin witness Ball's murder. Agent Zane is found shot in the arm next to Ball's body and claims he didn't see the sniper.
Anne, Teresa, Evie, Heather and Barb are taken to the police station, where they can't identify the shooter. Sharp is to protect the girls at all times, information relayed to him by the Governor of Texas. Sharp is divorced, and has an estranged 17-year-old daughter, Emma.
Without evidence, John Cortland is set free. FBI Agent Zane secretly works for him, so killed Ball and shot himself in the arm. Cortland reprimands him for not tying up loose ends, so Zane kills the hired sniper and searches for Sharp and the cheerleaders. With Swanson in the hospital recovering from her near-fatal wound, Sharp and two other Rangers must now protect the girls and secure their sorority house. Sharp moves in with them, and the other two move into the nearby fraternity house.
Sharp's ground rules include no cell phones and to wear less revealing clothes around him. When they ignore him, he installs an industrial air conditioner, forcing them to dress warmly. Supposedly their cheerleading coach specializing in conditioning, at a Longhorns football game Sharp tackles the opposing team's mascot when it nears them with a gun, a water gun. Other mishaps occur, but Sharp's relationship with the girls begins to strengthen.
Sharp becomes attracted to Barb's English teacher Molly, who draws his attention to Barb's plagiarism. Inviting her over for dinner, the girls coach him through it using an earpiece and tiny camera. After a bit, he turns them off and woos Molly himself. He tells the girls about his failed marriage and the way he feels about his estranged daughter. This interests Evie, who wants to write a paper on Emma. She calls her with the house's "emergency phone", alerting Zane to Sharp's location, as he'd bugged Emma's phone.
At a "spirit rally," Sharp has to give an inspiring speech. He gets more and more impassioned, proving to the girls he finally "gets it." However, afterwards Sharp finds a bomb under their van. He saves Teresa (who hadn't believed someone was after them) by cutting her out of her stuck seatbelt, so she realizes the threat is real.
When Sharp is told Evie phoned Emma he calls, discovering Zane has her. He instructs Sharp to get the money from the safe deposit box Ball had given him the key to, neither of them are aware the cheerleaders are listening. The next day at the meeting point, Zane reminds Sharp to cooperate or he will shoot Emma. Cuffing himself to the steering wheel after leaving his cell and gun in the money bag, Zane then takes off with the money, Sharp's keys and phone, and Emma.
They get on a bus with Barb in the back. As Sharp wonders what is going on, Heather picks his handcuffs, chasing the bus in a stolen Volkswagen Beetle. On the bus, Teresa pretends to go into labor, so Evie demands the bus stop. She attempts to steal Zane's bag, but he pulls a gun, so she runs away from the bus. Zane drives away the empty bus himself.
The cheerleaders rescue Emma, while Zane attempts to cross to Mexico. Sharp causes the bus to flip with one shot. Zane begins walking to the Mexico–United States border, the border officers close it, drawing their guns. Sharp prevents Zane's attempted suicide by cop by shooting his gun hand and handcuffing him. He and Emma are reunited.
At the end of the film, Cortland is arrested and taken back to court. Sharp and Molly are married, with Emma and the cheerleaders part of the wedding.
The film, initially written by John J. McLaughlin and Scott Lobdell under the title of Cheer Up, was first acquired by Steven Reuther's Bel-Air Entertainment with Warner Bros. set to distribute. At one point in its development at Warner Bros. Jonathan Lynn was attached as director with Robert Zemeckis as producer. By August 2002, it was announced Stephen Herek was in final negotiations to direct the film which would feature Tommy Lee Jones as a hardened FBI agent who is forced to live with and protect a group of cheerleaders who witness a murder. In May 2003, it was reported that Revolution Studios had acquired the project in Turnaround from Warner Bros. and Robert Ramsey and Matthew Stone providing rewrites.
On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating from critics of 9% based on 67 reviews, with an average rating of 3.4/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "A high concept movie that plays out like a mediocre TV sitcom." On Metacritic, the film has a score of 35 out of 100 based on 20 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B−" on an A+ to F scale.
James Berardinelli of ReelViews panned the film, rating it one star out of four and writing: "The movie is an 'action comedy' in name only – there's nothing in Man of the House that could be considered funny or exciting." He also said the movie "manages to neuter Cedric the Entertainer's capacity for humor" since "not even he is able to deliver a legitimate laugh" and that Tommy Lee Jones "comes across as taciturn and unlikable."
Stephen Hunter of The Washington Post called the film "a one screen multiplex" with "a lot of small movies bouncing around inside it, but there's no big movie on the outside." Hunter felt that by the end the "many personalities" of the film have "grown tiresome". Nonetheless, he complimented Tommy Lee Jones' "deadpan" portrayal, saying "Whenever Herek doesn't know what to do -- and that's frequently -- he cuts to Jones, radiating world-weariness with the aplomb of Fred Astaire, and it's always funny."
Dana Stevens of The New York Times wrote: "Nearly every one of the film's emotional scenes is too predictable to hit its mark, but Mr. Jones's dry delivery has its moments." Stevens found Cedric the Entertainer to be disappointing, stating that he "fails for once to live up to his name".
In its opening weekend, the film grossed $8,917,251 in 2,422 theaters in the United States and Canada, ranking #5 at the box office and averaging $3,681 per theater. The film closed on April 7, 2005, with a North American domestic gross of $19,699,706 and an international gross of $1,877,918 for a worldwide gross of $21,577,624. The film was released in the United Kingdom on April 8, 2005, and opened on #14.