Film
The Ladies Man
- Comedy
- Light-hearted
Tim Meadows plays Leon Phelps, a sleazy late-night radio host fired for his aggressive sexual commentary, who embarks on a cross-country odyssey to find a mysterious former lover promising riches. It's a sketch-comedy film with the anarchic, anything-goes energy of early SNL spinoffs—rude, visually chaotic, and utterly committed to its own absurdity. Pure comfort food for people who miss when comedy aimed to offend.
If you liked this
Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy2004
Will Ferrell and Adam McKay capture that same spirit of a delusional man-child completely oblivious to his own ridiculousness. Quotable, visually inventive, and shameless in its ambition to make you laugh at terrible behavior.
But It's exhausting if you don't buy into the premise that the character's confidence is the joke. Also runs long and occasionally feels like it's laughing at its own references rather than at anything real.

Old School2003
Todd Phillips and Will Ferrell again—this time exploring arrested development with the same boundless commitment to bad decisions and physical comedy. Warmer than Anchorman but just as unhinged and quotable.
But The party-comedy formula can feel thin if you're not in the mood for it. Some humor lands hard, some just lands loud.

Tropic Thunder2008
Ben Stiller directs and stars in this satire of action-movie excess where comedians play cartoonishly committed versions of themselves. Audacious, fast-paced, and funny in ways that reward attention and repeat viewings.
But It's mean-spirited by design, and some jokes haven't aged particularly well. Also demands you know a little about action movies to get the sharpest bits.

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The wildcard
Something you would not have found on your own.
The Kentucky Fried Movie1977
Both are films built on the assumption that commitment to a ridiculous premise and shameless performance are funnier than cleverness. Both believe the laugh is worth any indignity.
David Zucker and Jerry Zucker's sketch-film precursor to Airplane!, made before they perfected the form. Raw, unfiltered, and full of the same anarchic energy: no premise is sacred, every transition is a surprise, and commitment to the bit is everything.
But It's genuinely crude by any era's standards, and the sketches are uneven—some land hard, some die on screen. Also deeply of its moment, which can feel dated in tone even as it's funny.

More like this (8)
DodgeBall: A True Underdog Story2004
Vince Vaughn and Ben Stiller in a lowbrow sports comedy that refuses to get clever about itself. Absurd, genuinely silly, and packed with character actors making ridiculous choices seem completely sincere.
But The plot is tissue-thin and the comedy is entirely slapstick and one-liners. If you need character development or narrative momentum, move on.

Wedding Crashers2005
Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn as con men at weddings—it's got the same clueless-guy-in-over-his-head energy and commitment to absurd set pieces. Looser and more romantic than The Ladies Man, but equally shameless.
But The second half deflates considerably once the plot kicks in. Also relies heavily on the charm of its leads, which not everyone finds irresistible.

BASEketball1998
Trey Parker and Matt Stone invent a ridiculous sport and populate it with stupid jokes, absurd characters, and complete disregard for good taste. It's anarchy with a laugh track's spirit, even if it doesn't have one.
But The concept is paper-thin and wears out its welcome around the halfway mark. Humor is relentlessly juvenile with virtually no variation in register or tone.

Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo1999
Rob Schneider's ridiculous premise (a fish-tank cleaner becomes a male escort) is treated with complete sincerity. Dumb but confident, and the weirdness of the supporting characters carries it further than it has any right to go.
But It's aggressively stupid, sometimes in ways that feel more uncomfortable than funny. Also doesn't really hang together past the setup.

Bio-Dome1996
Pauly Shore and Baldwin Paulson accidentally get locked in a biodome and chaos erupts. It's incomprehensibly silly in a way that almost feels accidental, like a sketch that escaped its constraints.
But The script is barely a sketch. If you're looking for anything resembling sense or structure, you'll be frustrated by how little it cares about either.

National Lampoon's Van Wilder2002
Ryan Reynolds as an ageless college student who refuses to graduate. Dumb comedy that knows it's dumb and commits fully to its own excess, with a surprisingly charismatic lead performance.
But The plot feels cobbled together from a dozen teen comedies. Character arcs are non-existent and the humor doesn't build so much as repeat.

I'm Gonna Git You Sucka1988
Both find their humor in the gap between sincerity and absurdity. Both put their faith in actors fully inhabiting ridiculous characters without winking at the camera.
Keenan Ivory Wayans directs and stars in this Blaxploitation parody that's in on every joke but completely sincere about the comedy. Over-the-top performances, absurd visuals, and genuine affection for the genre it's mocking. Also hilarious.
But The humor is so tied to 1970s action-cinema that you need to know the films being parodied to get the sharpest gags. Also slower-paced than you might expect.

Freddy Got Fingered2001
Both are films where the commitment to the character's delusion is the entire engine of the comedy. Both refuse the comfort of meta-commentary or distance. Both believe that complete sincerity in service of insanity is the funniest thing possible.
Tom Green's one feature film is genuinely unhinged—a character comedy that swings wildly between tenderness and grotesque provocation. It's anarchic and committed in a way that almost no mainstream comedy is willing to be, and it frequently lands.
But It's grotesquely offensive in ways that aren't always in service of the joke, and there's no safety net of irony. It's also structurally a mess, and the kindness it occasionally shows its characters can feel like whiplash.

People
Cast
Tim MeadowsLeon Phelps
Karyn ParsonsJulie Simmons
Billy Dee WilliamsLester
John WitherspoonScrap Iron
Jill TalleyCandy
Lee EvansBarney
Will FerrellLance DeLune
Sofia MilosCheryl
Eugene LevyBucky Kent
David HubandFrank
Kevin McDonaldMail Man
Directing
- Reginald HudlinDirector
Writing
- Dennis McNicholasWriter
- Harper SteeleWriter
- Tim MeadowsWriter
Production
- Harper SteeleAssociate Producer
- Rick MontgomeryCasting
- Robin D. CookCasting
- Erin FraserExecutive Producer
- Robert K. WeissExecutive Producer
- Thomas LevineExecutive Producer
- Lorne MichaelsProducer
- Michael WrayUnit Production Manager