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In this claptrap of hokum, Tommy Lee Jones leverages his Fugitive and US Marshals personae as a Texas Ranger assigned to guard a house full of University of Texas cheerleaders. At first, the quintet of curvy coeds parade around in scanty outfits, but Jones’s killjoy Roland Sharp orders them to cover up, forcing the issue by cranking up the AC. The plot is driven by an ongoing corruption trial where the key witnesses keep getting offed, but it’s really a convoluted excuse for a hardened man to get in touch with his sensitive side. Sharp bonds with the girls, helping them to excel in the classroom, learns to communicate better with his estranged daughter (Shannon Marie Woodward), and even finds romance in the form of Anne Archer’s Lit professor. Full of angst and dogged morality, Jones carries the film, and the brisk tempo set by director Stephen Herek (Life or Something like It) helps. Nonetheless, it’s still fluffy fiddle-faddle that at low ebb has Jones fishing a cell phone out of a cow’s ass and at its high has Cedric the Entertainer embroiled in a tit-for-tat cheer square-off with the fab five. (97 minutes)
BY TOM MEEK
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