FT Top 100 Films
65: THREE MEN AND A BABY
Okay. I fail to see exactly what is so funny about the set-up. They are men. They have to look after a baby. Maybe the humour is devised from their differing fathering styles. One is over-protective, the other more free spirited and the third is vegan. Oh, I see it is none of these. It is actually just that men + baby = hilarity.
Society: get a grip.
Perhaps though the idea of Ted Danson + Steve Guttenberg + Tom Selleck + Baby = guffaws galore. There are a couple of gifted comic actors in that mix, and with a sure fire comic director even the lamest of sexist premises might come off. Enter Leonard Nimoy, a man whose acting relied on eyebrows even more than Roger Moore. Beyond the obvious gags about shitty nappies, where did they think they were going with this. Where they went was Three Men And A Little Lady, the less said about which the better. Instead we have a purile film where the paternity of a child is used as some form of punishment for promiscuity. How does that get into a Disney film?
Oh and don’t even start me on the fact that the film is based on a French classic: Trois hommes et un couffin. Hmm, like French society isn’t even more sexist. The film is only watchable for yet another grandstanding turn from Steve Guttenberg, sadly not realising that his career was about to go tits up and that Zeus And Roxanne was a mere ten years away. At least his character seems to understand that he is stuck in some sort of 1940’s reactionary throwback, and that looking after kids is not the worst thing that could happen. The film is only interesting if it is read as an AIDS drama with the baby as the virus.