Wanting it both ways

"I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry" will not make a run for the Oscar like "Brokeback Mountain."

But it may actually do more to combat some forms of bigotry, for the simple reason that it will draw from the sort of demographic that wouldn't go to a gay cowboy movie at the point of a Winchester.

So if you're "Chuck and Larry," a lowbrow, slapstick comedy with a message about why you shouldn't use the word "faggot," how do you get a bunch of red-blooded, all-American male breeders into the theater?

Just so you know, the answer to this question is always "Jessica Biel."

Adam Sandler and Kevin James play two hetero New York firefighters who pretend to be domestic partners to protect pension and health benefits for one man's children. They need a lawyer to protect them from city inspectors - enter Biel, with whom Sandler's character quickly falls in love.

It's a twist on the Tony Curtis/Marilyn Monroe relationship from "Some Like it Hot," or Dustin Hoffman/Jessica Lange from "Tootsie." Alarm bells sound. Anytime you think of Sandler updating a Hollywood classic, you think of "Mr. Deeds," and the possibility that you're going to witness some heinous act of movie vandalism.

To that end, I don't remember Monroe inviting Curtis to cup her breasts to determine if they're real - an event that transpires in "Chuck and Larry," with Biel under the impression that Sandler is her gay confidante.

On the other hand, I'll admit that I did not object to that scene, which fulfills the cinematic mandate that Biel appear, at some point, in her underwear. And it sure beat the sequence in which a gigantic fat guy lands on Sandler during a fire rescue and breaks wind in his face.

The movie (from a script by Alexander Payne and Jim Taylor) has been Sandlerized (Rob Schneider has a cameo), but not to the point of "Little Nicky." And it has an ensemble feel. Kevin James ("The King of Queens," "Hitch") is a likeable screen presence, his chemistry with Sandler is decent and he has some good moments when his co-star is off-screen.

James plays a widower who worries about where an on-the-job disaster might leave his two children, one of whom is a boy who ignores dad's pleas to watch the Mets because he wants to practice his tap-dancing, or audition for "Pippin." Dad's pretending to be gay, and he's in a bit of a panic that his son may actually BE gay.

"Chuck and Larry" allows Sandler to taunt his partner mercilessly about the boy's effeminate attributes. It's typical of the way the movie indulges in homophobic humor before delivering its ultimate message that homophobia is wrong.

The movie skates by because it attaches gay-bashing to ignorance, but it doesn't always employ this tactic as deftly as, say, the Farrelly brothers, so there are some awkward moments when it feels as though "Chuck and Larry" wants it both ways.

So to speak. *

Produced by Adam Sandler, Jack Giarraputo, Tom Shadyac and Michael Bostick, directed by Dennis Dugan, written by Barry Fanaro, Alexander Payne and Jim Taylor, distributed by Universal Pictures.