Tommy Lee Jones may be the bravest man in Hollywood. At least that's what I thought after watching his latest film, Man of the House. After all, it takes a special kind of courage (or one very large paycheck) to accept a role in which you must don an elbow-length latex glove and then stick your arm up a cow's arse, all within the first five minutes of the film.

Man of the House is, for long stretches, a total piece of excrement; the wonder of it is how Jones still manages to come out smelling relatively sweet. Director Stephen Herek and his posse of screenwriters (six by my count) may be clueless about many things, but they do understand the precise nature of their star's stoic, craggy charm, and they provide him with a series of setups in which he looms like Mount Rushmore over the mess that surrounds him.

That close encounter with the cow is one of the more unfortunate setups, but it's all in a day's work for Roland Sharp (Jones), an "old school" Texas ranger who's simply retrieving a piece of evidence hidden by a cornered suspect (Cedric the Entertainer, who may be the second-bravest man in Hollywood). Sharp is meant to embody traditional masculine virtues: not only is he strong, silent and accustomed to cutting through the crap, he even packs an old-fashioned six-shooter.

But it's Gary Cooper meets "Girls Gone Wild" when Sharp is assigned to protect a group of University of Texas cheerleaders (Vanessa Ferlito, Paula Garces, Kelli Garner, Monica Keena and Christina Milian) who've witnessed a murder. He goes undercover as the assistant cheerleading coach and moves in with the team, where he's plunged into a post-feminist world of low-cut tops, low-rise jeans and high-functioning libidos. Asked to identify the killer from a thick stack of mug shots, the cheerleaders instead get to work rating the ex cons. "Just tell me this sweet thing is out on parole!" one of the girls squeals.

Clearly, the filmmakers set out to make a culture-clash comedy in which each side learns from the other. Jones, the firm father figure, will save the girls from their Britney-inspired excesses. They, in turn, will teach him to be a better father to his own teenage daughter-not to mention a better-groomed date for Molly McCarther (Anne Archer), the literature professor who becomes his age-appropriate romantic interest.

But lacking any assets beyond Jones' quick-draw wit and his withering way with a reaction shot, Man of the House is left as exposed as the cheerleaders' midsections-as a movie that should have been kept under permanent house arrest.