Tom (Cuba Gooding Jr.) is Mr. Nice Guy hanging out at the bar on Valentine’s Day getting things ready for a great night with his girlfriend Sara (Victoria Pratt) as he is loaded up with flowers and big boxes of candy hearts. When Tom gets home he sees that all of Sara’s stuff is gone from the closets, there are a pair of suitcases by the door and he has been left a Dear John note informing him that she needs her ‘space’. Distraught beyond all reasonable belief Tom calls Sara, who still has to grab those last two suitcases and she will be heading over to give him the lowdown on the breakdown in just little bit.

Enter one of Tom’s good buddies Sal (Matthew Liard) who serves the purpose of asshole insensitive player guy in this movie. Tom has invited Sal and a bunch of his other friends over this night. Now as to why he’s invited his boys over to the crib to help him celebrate Valentines day with his girl, one can only wonder, but Sal has also invited a gaggle of females much to Tom’s dismay. Insensitive guy tells Nice guy how he just broke up with HIS girl in his most colorful language and basically informs Nice guy how ‘bitches ain’t sh*t’, particularly when he hears that Sara has broken up with Nice guy on Valentine’s Day. Bitch.

Enter Ken (Mars Callahan) who will be presented as Married Guy and as such he is Common Sense guy since all we married guys are loaded down with common sense. He admits what Sara had done is F’d up but disagrees vehemently with Sal on his views on ‘bitches’ since his bitch is quite the sh*t. Insensitive Guy just rails on Married guy that he’s just a henpecked shell of a man married to a ball busting shrew as Married Guy explains to Insensitive Guy the difference between taking orders from your wife and feeling privileged to do things for this wife.

Well hello there Wayne (Andre Daly) who enters the posh loft as Gay Guy. You might ask how these testosterone fueled Neanderthals managed to have a gay friend. Well they were all homies well before Gay Guy knew he was gay which STILL upsets Insensitive Guy as he blasts on Gay Guy for being the most confused of them all in more spirited profane dialog, while we wait for Gay Gay’s gay lover who he is marrying this summer with Nice Guy serving as his Best man.

Finally enter George (Sean Astin) who is Sensitive Guy, as we can plainly see by his open toed sandals, tie died shirts and Green Peace membership. Sensitive Guy idolizes women and places them on a pedestal, which naturally upsets Insensitive Guy to no end. Sensitive guy just kinds of hangs out in the background whilst we wait for the women to arrive, and arrive they do in Whore (Tamala Jones), Realist (Gina Gershon), Ditz (Judy Taylor), Delusion (Anne Heche) and Idealist (Shiri Appleby) who go into Nice Guy’s HUGE bathroom and have their own brand of spirited dialog, join the boys as all our stereotypes try to figure out what in the world is Tom going to say to Sara when she comes to pick up her luggage and exit his life.

‘What Love Is’ was written and directed by Married Guy Mars Callahan and allow me to tell you that I found his film very entertaining… for the most part. The vast majority of the film takes place in the middle of Tom’s living room and is setup a lot like stage play in the character staging and dialog. To alleviate what I suppose would be tedium of having one location for the film Callahan uses a lot of quick cuts and sharp edits, frequently switching from character to character, rarely keeping the camera in one spot for longer than 3 seconds. Think Michael Bay directing Neil Simon. At times it was distracting but at least it was consistent throughout the film. Cuba gets top billing but this was really a Matthew Liard film since he had the most dialog and all the good lines, though the majority of the cast did a fine job in this extremely dialog heavy film, though our writer / director didn’t have the same ‘snap’ in his lines as the rest of his cast did.

Alrighty then, so I enjoyed the movie as entertainment, but let us not think that thing presents any kind of real social message as the extremely broad stereotypes for the characters should be a clear indication of this, because, at least in my experience, nobody talks like this in real life. Do men talk about women? Of course we do, but I have found that conversations are basically sketchy and glossed over and generally go along these lines; ‘Hey man, how’s the wife?’ ‘Bitch is driving me crazy’. ‘That sucks. Can I borrow some money?’ Then the conversation will get in depth on how no money will be passing hands for someone’s begging ass, or in depth why the manager didn’t pinch hit with a runner at second, or any number of things. Men don’t obsess with each other about women. Only superficially. From my experience.

Now I have no clue what women talk about when they get together, nor do I think Mars Callahan knows either, though his mature cast of hotties probably could have advised him on this. I do know the women I work around when I seem them talking are prattling on about ‘Dancing With the Stars’ and stuff, though they could very well have complex conversations about performing oral sex, like they do in this movie. Looks like it’s time to listen in on the wife’s phone conversations.

I liked the way this movie moved, I like the way it flowed and I thought it was funny, but not for a moment did I take it the least bit serious, and my goodness, neither should you.