When 10 year old Lance (Garren Stitt) ‘borrows’ one of his Dad’s guns to take to school to show to his best friend, the two of them get into a scrap and accidentally fire a couple of shots in the air. When Lance and his parents are hauled in front of the School Principal who makes light of the whole incident with Glenn (Matt Passmore) the dad, Lance’s mother Jenna (Andrea Anders) is furious that this potentially fatal incident is not taken seriously at all. The trouble is in this small hometown of Rockford in the heart of Texas, gun culture is such a way of life and every nice middle-class family proudly have their own heavily stocked arsenal at home. Albeit under lock and key, which is hardly a deterrent for inquisitive kids.
Glenn’s complacency over the matter so riles Jenna that she insists that he remove all the guns from their house immediately, and when he refuses to even consider such a drastic measure then she confronts him with an ultimatum. Either the guns go or she will stop performing her wifely duties in both the kitchen and bedroom. She is unable to persuade her husband to change his mind, but is much more successful in getting all her friends and neighbors to agree to withdraw conjugal rights from their husbands too.
Once this happens, it simply doesn’t take a great deal to second-guess where this very obvious cliched story line is heading. This new take on a very old idea of women using their sexual privileges to force their menfolk into line (dating way back to the classic greek play Lysistrata ) is a very limp affair indeed. With such a painfully unfunny script, it is left to a handful of really talented well-known supporting cast to try and wring a few genuine laughs out of the piece, but even the normally gloriously funny Cloris Leachman (playing the Sherriff’s mother in law) cannot save this dud.
The timing could not be more perfect for any-anti gun movie right now, and it is such a pity that this one will neither help the movement, or make anyone laugh much at all.
