Milk Money

Richard Benjamin used to be a contender. Strictly a welterweight, but his direction of My Favorite Year and Racing With the Moon at least showed modest promise. Then he took a series of dives with such Joe Palooka productions as My Stepmother Is an Alien and Made In America. The guy absorbed so many well-deserved, critical poundings that it's no small wonder Benjamin has turned into a punchy has-been who can barely slug his way through a lousy sex comedy like Milk Money. He's a prime candidate for the Fat City retirement home, where he can yell "action" all day until the nurse pops him a sleeping pill.

The general gist of this substandard farce is that a 12-year-old boy (Michael Patrick Carter) can acquire a new stepmother — and improve his sex education — by recruiting a hooker (Melanie Griffith) for his dad. Since pop is a nerdy science teacher (Ed Harris) with wetlands for brains, he's the only person who doesn't realize that Griffith isn't a math tutor. His naive conversations with her about one-on-one teaching results in the most-extended double entendre in film history. It's pretty lame, but this is the only gag going for the movie.

The only interesting thing about Milk Money is its inexplicable tendency toward literary inside jokes. Griffith's character is simply named V after the Thomas Pynchon novel, and the kid goes to Owen Meaney Jr. High. This is clear proof that English grad students should stay away from movie-making and instead follow the more traditional career path of driving taxi cabs.