Women Vs. Men is a combination light comedy, heavy drama, and social commentary about relationships between, you guessed it, men and women. Originally made for ShowTime in 2001, it attempts to explore the age old question of why the battle of the sexes is so filled with animosity and why it exists in the first place. The director, Chazz Palminteri, is best known for his roles as small time crooks in various films and television roles rather than his expertise in marital bliss.

Okay, without revealing too much of the story, here's the basic idea behind the movie. Joe Mantegna plays a man who's wife (Christine Lahti) is upset with him, ostensibly because he bought her a brand new Cadillac that has reminded her she's getting old. His pal, Paul Reiser, comes over to console him and they decide to visit a strip club to forget about their women troubles for a few hours. The story tries to get interesting when Joe's wife follows them inside and sees the two having fun with some attractive, YOUNGER, women. Hell hath no fury like a woman seeing her husband enjoy himself with a young stripper, and the story plays off this for the rest of the movie. For the most part, the movie appears to have a guy's point of view but only in the sense that it's a guy with a guilty conscious.

Picture:

The picture was full frame and fairly clear although most of the movie took place during the night. There were no visible artifacts or other major defects in this run of the mill, made for cable, movie.

Sound:

The sound was 2.0 stereo and nothing special. The movie is centered around talk so the music kind of faded behind my consciousness into obscurity. On the up side, it was reasonably clean with few problems.

Extras:

All it comes with is the trailer for the movie, a list of other MGM releases, and subtitles in English, French, and Spanish.

Final Thoughts:

I could attempt to dissect each stereotypical facet of this movie but the bottom line is that it wouldn't make the analysis any more accurate. We all know that men and women see things in a different light but this movie would have us believe that all men see things one way and all women see things another and that two dimensional outlook is probably what hampers the potential this one had. The predictable ending was so obvious that you'd see it coming before the first ten minutes of the show, which is not always the case with made for TV movies. I like the performers in other projects but they were stuck with a screenplay that obviously prevented them from showing their varied talents. For me, the only highlight outside the all too brief strip club scene was a couple moments with Robert Pastorelli who, for all his goofiness, stole the show.

A word of caution to those who rent this one: Don't let your significant other watch this one. It may put ideas in their head that are simply paranoid and cause problems for you later. This is best suited for women who've broken up with someone recently and can't get over it without blaming all men for something or other.