Cougar Club (2007)

Directed by Christopher Duddy
Starring Jason Jurman, Warren Kole, Kaley Cuoco
Rated R
USA

"What is that?"
"That, my friend, is a gold lame banana hammock."

First off, I should point out the obvious: if you use the word "cougar" when describing older women who prefer the company of younger men, then please, stop reading. Just get the fuck out of here. This "cougar" business is so obnoxious that it can really only appeal to college-age power-pukers, so how this film managed to get produced - and with an actual budget, and with actual actors - is seriously beyond me. But here it is, and it's about girls, and its got adorable Kaley Cuoco in it, so what the hell. Let's get nuts.

Spence Holmes (Jason Jurman) has just graduated from business school. He's got the perfect girlfriend, Amanda (Cuoco), a great job already lined up, and a bright future ahead of him. But he's also got a rascally best friend, Hogan, (Warren Kole, coasting like a poor man's Neil Patrick Harris) who loves fucking older women and, if possible, ruining Holmes' day.

It is not an easy task, identifying with a protagonist who has a perfect life handed to him, so when we find Spencer at a lavish graduation party hosted by his future boss, Stan Birnbaum (Norm Crosby, a very long way from the Phyllis Diller Show), you almost want to see him crash and burn. And so he does. Before that, however, we get to meet the only likable character in the entire movie: Casey Dixon (Nicole Rayburn).

So Casey, a wispy blonde, waltzes up to our two main fuck-faces.
"Well, I lost the bet," she says to Spencer.
"What bet?" Hogan asks.
"I bet Spencer you wouldn't graduate," she says. "Now I have to show him my tits."
And she does. It's pretty amazing.
"Do you want to touch them?" She asks Spencer.
He does.
Casey Dixon was fucking awesome.

The downward spiral kicks in soon after, though. During Spencer's speech, the wall of the boathouse comes crashing down, revealing Hogan and their new boss's wife, Edith (Faye Dunaway), fucking on the floor. Needless to say, they lose that job and end up working for a screwy law office where a fat bald guy makes them clean his toes. Parenthetically, not only is there an abundance of foot fetish gags in this movie, there's also a lot of boner humor. At one point, there's a scene with a cat is licking one Hogan's morning wood.

Anyway, the law firm is run by Mr. Stack (Joe Mantegna, seriously slumming). Mr. Stack sends Spence and Hogan out on various dirty deeds. They have to slash one guy's tires so he misses a court date, and then they have to hand Stack's estranged wife her divorce papers.

So they slash the douchebag's tires, and head over to see wifey. When they get there, they are greeted by wrestler/freak of nature/plastic surgery disaster Chyna. She's Stack's sister. Or possibly brother. Hard to tell. At any rate, there's a sex toy party under way, hosted by Edith, who is now sexually liberated, thanks to Hogan. She suggests that he get together a bunch of his friends to have sex with her and her friends. Meanwhile, Stacks' wife, Daniella (Polish beauty Izabella Scorupo) shows up, and she happens to be the blonde chick in the office that gave Spence a boner the day before all this bullshit. So that's happening.

And so, the "Cougar Club" starts up, and things are going ok. Hogan turns the fuck-buddy scheme into an actual business, charging guys a thousand dollars to join, and then hosting sex parties. Spencer is into it as well, but Amanda wants him to move in with her, and he wants to bone the boss's soon-to-be ex-wife. So it's complicated, man.

Somewhere around this point in the film, there's a scene where Amanda's having a serious discussion with Spencer about their future, and there's a gardener in the background watering the lawn with a hose. He's holding said hose so that it looks like he's pissing. They stay on to this shot for at least five minutes. Five minutes for a the-hose-makes-it-look-like-I'm-peeing gag. Spence ditches Amanda and then gets his parents to leave the house for the evening to he and Hogan can throw a "Cougar Party".
Various party hijinks ensue, including one scene where Chyna makes one of the kids jams her foot into a jar of jelly and then eat the mush off her toes.

So all of this fucking is going on, and then Spence's dad suddenly comes home with Mr. Stack to discuss getting Spence into Yale, and he has to run around closing curtains and slamming doors so they don't notice all the wife-banging going on outside. And then Amanda shows up, and it all goes to hell. Oblivious to the anguish he's putting his fiancé through, Spence tries to convince Daniella to stay. He just got finished fucking her.

"Spencer, are you having a relationship with this old lady?" Amanda whines, which seemed a little rude to me. I can understand her frustration, though. This kid Spencer sucks.

So, some interminable time later, while Spence and Hogan are out on some reconnaissance mission (it involves the two of them wearing camouflage in a tree, while they take pictures of two chicks frolicking in a pool with a musclehead), Mr. Stack finds Hogan's files on the Cougar Club. He finds them because Hogan left them in an expanding folder with "Cougar Club" written on it in magic marker. Not surprisingly, given that the kid is fucking his wife, Mr. Stack calls the cops, and an undercover mustache guy shows up and arrests them.

So they get arrested, and it looks like they're fairly fucked, but one of their Club buddies just passed the bar, and agrees to represent them. One of the firm guys threatens to blow up Spencer's car, so they figure they can frame him for making terrorist threats. Eventually it all comes together, and they slither out of their jam. Spence moves in with Amanda, and everyone lives happily every after, except the fuckers that got arrested.

And then Hogan shows up. Apparently, Spence loves him more, so he leaves Amanda in her wedding dress.

There's a twist ending. It's so fucking stupid it's not worth repeating.

Listen, I'm not saying you have to be a dickhead to like this movie, but...well, I guess that is what I'm saying. Cougar Club clearly has superior production values, especially for a project this throwaway, but it is soulless and unfunny, and a supreme waste of talented character actors like Moriarty and Mantegna. They even managed to make the otherwise lighter-than-air Cuoco seem overbearing and shrewish. Really, the only reason to watch this is for Casey Dixon, and she's only onscreen for 40 seconds. They should have made a movie about her instead.

Availability: Cougar Club is available on DVD.

- Ken McIntyre