JUST ONE OF THE GUYS. Directed by Lisa Gottlieb; written by Dennis Feldman and Jeff Franklin; produced by Andrew Fogelson for Columbia. Starring Joyce Hyser, Clayton Rohner and Billy Jacoby. Rated PG-13 (language, subject matter).
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Just One of the Guys is, unfortunately, just another one of a long line of uninteresting teenpix. It has a different twist in that the main character is a girl who masquerades as a boy for most of the movie. But it's only mildly amusing, with vulgarity substituting for wit, and the usual stereotyped characters.
Terry (Hyser) is a high school senior who seems to have it all. Besides having a college boyfriend who's quite a hunk, she's attractive, affluent, and a cool dresser. But when she doesn't win a school journalism contest she feels it's because of discrimination. No one believes she has a brain because she's so cute.
Now she could, at this point, have gone undercover as an ugly, or least a plain, girl. But she chooses to cut her hair and pretend to be an attractive. affluent boy (who is also a cool dresser). In disguise, she shows up at a neighboring high school (how she manages to register there is never discussed).
For 10 days or so, she manages to carry off the masquerade, with a doctor's note to get her out of gym and a lot of chutzpah. The predictable gender mix-up problems occur; a girl falls in love with her/him; Terry falls for Rick (Rohner) while she's helping him get up the courage to ask another girl to the prom. These kinds of scenes have been done many times, and better. But Hyser is talented enough to make them pretty funny here anyway. But Tootsie, Victor/ Victoria, or even Yentl, it's not.
The casting, at least in the case of Rohner, is a big problem in Just One of the Guys. Rick is supposed to be a neat person (and a latent cool dresser) hidden beneath a shy exterior. He handles the shy part well, but he doesn't ever effectively blossom into the kind of guy someone like Terry would fall for.
Except for Terry and Buddy (Jacoby), her younger brother, the rest of the cast is unimpressive, too, and contains the usual stereotypes. Even Terry as a female is too cool and hip to be very likeable. But she's quite funny and more appealing as a boy.
Perhaps this is because her advisor on maleness (and her source of cool clothes) is Buddy. He is a funny character that gradually becomes likeable in spite of having only one conversation topic: sex. Just One of the Guys' excessive vulgarity comes almost solely from Buddy. It's quite amazing that he and Terry can convey a real sense of sibling closeness, considering the few opportunities they have for meaningful conversation.
In case anyone cares about an adult perspective, Terry and Buddy's parents are conveniently out of town for the length of the movie. So the only mature point of view offered by Just One of the Guys comes from two journalism teachers. And their contributions are limited to constructive criticism of Terry's writing.
It's fitting, somehow, that clothes are so important to these characters. Only the surface is interesting in Just One of the Guys. The characters have a few funny moments, but are one-dimensional and ultimately forgettable.
May 15, 1985