Metacritic Film

Three To Tango

Starring Matthew Perry, Neve Campbell, Dylan McDermott, and Oliver Platt

MPAA RATING: PG-13 for sex-related situations and language

Warner Bros.
Romance
98 minutes | Color
USA / Australia
Released In Theaters October 22, 1999

Wrongly assuming him to be gay, a wealthy businessman (Mc Dermott) assigns his architect (Perry) the additional task of spying on his mistress (Campbell). Much to his chagrin, the very heterosexual architect may have finally found the woman of his dreams. Now if only he could convince her and the rest of the world that he is not gay.

WRITTEN BY
Rodney Patrick Vaccaro (also story)
Aline Brosh McKenna

DIRECTED BY
Damon Santostefano

Overall Metascore

This is a weighted, normalized average of all individual scores given by critics, on a scale of 0 (worst) to 100 (best).

36 / 100

Critic Reviews

75 San Francisco Chronicle
Perry is at his best playing frenetic confusion.
70 Film.com
Quite smart, sensitive, and relatively sophisticated.
70 Variety
A smart and sassy comedy with a playful sensibility and subtle sensitivity.
65 TNT RoughCut Daysun Chang
A perfect date movie for boys and girls, boys and boys, and boys just pretending to like boys.
63 New York Daily News
A thin, by-the-numbers romantic comedy that nevertheless features one saving grace: Matthew Perry.
63 USA Today
Best to wait until the movie makes it to TV - where its missteps will loom less large.
63 New York Post
A cute, often very funny romantic comedy and an effective vehicle for Matthew Perry.
50 Baltimore Sun Milton Kent
So much of Three to Tango is calculated to push the proper emotional buttons that it's ultimately unsatisfying.
50 Philadelphia Inquirer
Perry and Campbell are charming despite this straitjacket plot.
50 Miami Herald
Dismayingly predictable and rote, a simple premise played out in the most obvious way possible.
50 Chicago Tribune
Television sitcom-style directing and writing.
42 Seattle Post-Intelligencer
The vapid plot line follows the same narrative arc as "Tootsie" but hasn't the heart or purpose of that film.
40 TV Guide
An uncomfortable go at romantic comedy that belabors the same mistaken-for-gay premise as"In & Out," but without much of that film's charm.
40 Washington Post
The movie's half over before it really starts to whack at the funny bone.
40 Newsweek Kevin Stuart
Relax and enjoy the brain candy.
40 Film.com
Does have its share of bona fide chuckles, but it falls shy of its possibilities.
40 Austin Chronicle
For each prejudice the film tries to shatter, it furthers a different stereotype.
38 Boston Globe
Trips early and never gets up off the floor.
38 Charlotte Observer
Puts more miles on plot that was worn out long ago.
30 Los Angeles Times Eric Harrison
Typical of this movie's cluelessness is the way it cavalierly traffics in stereotypes.
30 The New York Times
In trying to be both bold and nonthreatening, the movie ends up seeming tame and mildly offensive.
30 Rolling Stone
The kind of movie that TV stars do when they're on hiatus and trying to squeeze one in.
30 LA Weekly Chuck Wilson
Placing gay characters front and center in big Hollywood movies is supposed to inspire cheers, not the case of the creeps that comes with Three To Tango.
25 Chicago Sun-Times
Mired in a plot of such stupidity.
6 Mr. Showbiz
Inept, unfunny, and so brimming with bad ideas it's a wonder it wasn't manufactured by mandrills rather than adult humans.
0 Entertainment Weekly Bruce Fretts
I didn't think Matthew Perry could find a romantic comedy more inert or inane than the 1997 fiasco ''Fools Rush In.''

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