For the dogs

>> Tomcats is a horny comedy on par with Porky's

by JOANNE LATIMER

Just to let you know that Tomcats doesn't take itself too seriously, it starts with a cartoon. Women felines shaped like Jessica Rabbit tease a tomcat, who eventually rips the shirt off a sexy kitten. Two grenades appear where her boobs should be, then explode. There you have it. For approximately 30 more versions of that joke, watch the rest of Tomcats, a comedy that strings together umpteen sight gags about paranoid bachelors.

Tomcats is nonsense--pure and applied. A gang of guys attend their friend's wedding, where the remaining bachelors make a bet. The last one "standing" (read: not married) will win a wad of money. To fatten the purse, each contributes to a mutual fund. This is the first, and crucial, unbelievable plot point.

The biggest blowhard, Kyle (Jake Busey from Tail Lights Fade), is our anti-hero. He's a pig. He proudly recounts screwing a highschool girl while she puked out a car window.

"Her contractions were wrenching down on the old crank," he explained. That's Kyle. Not too far above Kyle is Michael (Jerry O'Connell), a womanizer who runs up a gambling debt while trying to impress a redhead. How can he repay the $50,000? Win the bet. His plan is to get Kyle married off, then take home the prize money.

To do this, he tracks down a bridesmaid that Kyle once, um, deflowered and abandoned after a wedding. She's now a cop and she's out for revenge. Together, they cook up a scheme, only to fall in love and ruin the ending. The casino owner, Carlos (David Steinbrenner) starts repossessing all of Michael's stuff, adding some tension to the plot--but we never quite believe that Michael's in danger.

I've skipped over the boner jokes, blowjob jokes, librarian jokes, dominatrix jokes, hooker/stripper jokes, breast-feeding jokes and even the cancer jokes. The best scene involves a runaway testical in a hospital cafeteria. Director-writer Gregory Poirier (he also wrote See Spot Run, not a good sign) is just about the right age to have been impressed by Porky's in his youth, and it shows. There's something surprisingly clean about all these dirty jokes. The bachelors in Tomcats are as harmless as dogs humping lawn furniture. Like most goofball sex comedies, the out-takes during the closing credits provide the best laughs and runaway humping.

Tomcats opens Friday, March 30