Movies are such a vital part of our culture. We go to the cinema, we rent videos, and even basic cable provides one or two movies at any given point in every day. So it’s getting downright crowded out there in movie land, and therefore harder and harder to come up with something original. "Three to Tango" doesn’t even try.

Instead it employs the old traditional girl meets boy plot and goes little from there. In this case the boy is Matthew Perry, who proves yet again that what we see in Friends is all he has to offer. Chandler’s goofy slapstick and athletic eyebrows are obviously the only tricks in Perry’s book, so they get used here as well. Still, he is cute, and since "Three to Tango" relies so heavily on eye candy, you could do worse. At least Perry doesn’t pretend to be a great actor—he’s a pretty face and that’s enough.

The object of Perry’s affection is Neve Campbell. She’s an artist—in fact, she’s a glass blower, and a pretty good one. Perry and Campbell meet via one of many serious plot holes that damage the smooth voyage of this film. Campbell—young, attractive and successful as she is, is involved with Chicago’s latest multi-millionaire, played most unconvincingly by Dylan McDermot. When I say played unconvincingly, I really think that poor McDermot is a sacrificial lamb in this movie. His role is dumb dumb dumb, which leaves no room for manouevering. Paul Newman couldn’t make this role happen, but then again, Paul Newman would have the brains not to take it in the first place.

Anyway, Campbell is McDermot’s mistress. McDermot needs some architects to remodel a building, and hires Perry and his partner for the job. Thinking Perry is gay, McDermot asks him to spy on Campbell making sure she’s not seeing other men. Hence Campbell and Perry meet and fall in love but hide their feelings and then fight and inevitably you know that the truth will have to come out, preferably in a huge arena where the boy will risk all in front of millions to tell his girl the truth. And in the meantime, if the boy can manage to sermonize on the state of the world, all the better, as if he knows more about living a lie in his 5 minutes of gayness than others do in a lifetime of the reverse. Its almost as annoying as the scene in Tootsie where Dustin Hoffman tells women what it means to be female. Hey, thanks, Dustin, boy, we sure didn’t know that until you told us!!!

Still, Three to Tango is all very entertaining, in its inane way, but there’s a certain discomfort to the film that is hard to shake. The movie hangs on the premise that Perry is gay when he really isn’t. A premise that is established in a most stupid way, and upheld with even less plausibility. In fact, there are many moments when even the most politically incorrect viewers would have to feel uncomfortable by the tasteless and cheap shots taken at the gay community.

For all that, it’s just a romantic comedy after all, meant to numb the senses and allowing the audience to indulge itself as hero or heroine of a life that is far removed from reality. And it does have a rather cool swing score that keeps the toes tapping.