Maybe I should just disqualify myself at the beginning. I've never been a big fan of comedies. This film has some good ideas, but the Farrelly brothers (writers and directors) take the easy way out. The gross-out.

Our story begins in Rhode Island, at a high school, a few days before the prom. The kids look WAY too old to be in high school, but that tradition started in 1958 with High School Confidential.

After nerdy Ted (Ben Stiller) does a good deed on behalf of her retarded brother, Warren (W. Earl Brown), dream girl Mary Jenson (Cameron Diaz) picks Ted as her prom date. Unfortunately, they never leave for the prom because Ted's genitals get caught in the zipper of his rented tux, resulting in an ambulance being called.

Flash forward 13 years. Ted is still pining over Mary, so his friend Dom (Chris Elliott) convinces him to hire Pat Healy (Matt Dillon) to track her down. Pat finds her, all right, but wants her for himself. He tries to throw Ted off the trail with some ridiculously inaccurate information.

In fact, Mary is now a successful orthopedic surgeon in Miami, and is still gorgeous. Best of all, she's single.

Ted decides to pursue her, after determining that Healy gave him a bum steer, but he still has to compete with Pat and Tucker (Lee Evans), a poindexter architect and patient of Mary's.

Following several clever plot twists, Ted does win Mary.

But, "Happily ever after" is not what is providing the buzz for this baby. As was noted by critic Robert Horton, the Farrelly brothers are like the guy at the party who is always willing to go just one step beyond the jokes everyone else is doing. He's not the funniest guy there, but he IS the guy everybody talks about the next day. To wit...

The caught in the zipper joke seems to go on forever, and ends up being more strained than funny.

We also get to watch, in an obscenely drawn-out scene, Tucker gyrate wildly and fall helplessly to the floor (twice), as he tries vainly, grotesquely, to pick up his dropped keys.

Another "hilarious" moment comes when Ted greets Mary with semen hanging from his left ear (he's just masturbated, in preparation for his date). Mary, thinking that it's styling gel, rubs it into her hair. A gag shot in a restaurant, showing the front of her hair sticking straight up, follows.

Mary's stepfather (Keith David) portrays nearly every black stereotype that could be fit into his time on the screen, while Richard Tyson (remember him as Buddy Revell in Three O'Clock High?) gives us an over the top "bad cop" cliche.

Since the Farrellys have offended everyone, they're supposed to be exempt, I guess. Actually, heterosexual men and women are probably the most offended. Mary, despite being a surgeon, is merely another dumb blonde, lapping up the absurd stories dished up by Pat and Tucker. And, every man who pursues Mary comes off as some sort of stalker. Despite all this rip roarin' fun, Matt Dillon seems to be the only one who is enjoying himself and turns in the film's only decent performance.

So what are we to make of all this? Just another nail in the coffin of quality. As for the Farrellys, they'll take the money.