Three Men and a Baby (1987)

Three Men and a Baby (1987)

7/10

Starring

Tom Selleck

Steve Guttenberg

Ted Danson

Directed by Leonard Nimoy

They do not come any lighter and sweeter than Three Men and a Baby. Here is a cast of three men who get a surprise when two of them work up and found a baby on the floor in front of their door belonging to the third, who was away acting in a movie.

The movie is a diamond, it has a comedy thrill because of the three leads. It is the thrill you do not get regularly and it did not play that magic you see on T.V. when people who are not caught out to be parents, magically figure it out and become great at it.

These guys at the beginning could not get things right and even though they did figure it out in the end on how to manage things, it still made their lives a living hell as we see them struggle to balance things.

Let me continue the plot from where I stopped above. The three men in question are Peter (Tom Selleck), Michael (Steve Guttenberg) and Jack (Ten Danson). Jack was the one who went away on an acting gig. Peter and Michael were the ones who found the baby in front of their apartment door where the three lived together.

Apparently, the child belonged to a lady which Jack had worked with before. She thought she could care for the child on her own, but the pressure of motherhood made her abandon her baby on the father’s door step with a note of her name (Mary) and the father.

The men immediately took responsibility of the child, but could not reach Jack because he was in another country.

Jack had told the other two to expect a package that will be sent for him and they are to leave the package anywhere until someone comes for it.

Unknown to Jack (who was receiving this package for a friend) the package content had something the police were looking for and had traced it to their apartment when it was delivered.

The two think the baby is the package, and could not wait to get rid of her as she was a pain and disrupted their lives. How things turned on their heads, is what this movie is all about.

The movie is based on the 1985 French film Trois hommes et un couffin (Three Men and a Cradle). I have not seen that one so it will be hard to say which was better. The only down side to this movie is the script. It seemed to dangle weird circumstances for the movie to play out, and it was only the comedy and strength of the actors that made this movie what it was.

There is a chemistry between everyone in the movie, from the villains to Jack’s mum and even the nice old lady living next door. As long as the actor had more than one scene in the movie they made the best of it to make each moment memorable and themselves just exquisite to behold.

Nice movie, which then had a sequel Three Men and a Little Lady (1990) which was not up to the level of this one here.