No, wait, it's because if Oscar confesses to being straight, zillionaire Charles Newman will surely rescind his tentative offer of a ninety million-dollar architecture contract. The role of Oscar seems tailor-made for Matthew Perry, given that on "Friends", his Chandler Bing is continually mistaken for gay. And as the saying goes: familiarity breeds contempt. Perry gets better lines on his sitcom, too.

The tycoon (the casting of TV heartthrob Dylan McDermott further illustrates the movie's small screen ambitions) wants someone to tail his mistress, a professional glass blower (!) named Amy Post ("Party of Five"'s Neve Campbell, completing the boob tube troika). She is bright, creative, and looks great in a miniskirt, so he'd better ask someone gay. Upon hearing some unfounded rumours, Newman offers the job to Oscar, who politely accepts. Hilarity, after all, cannot ensue from better judgment.

Now, Oscar doesn't realize that Newman has pegged him for gay. When he meets Amy at her gallery opening, the two hit it off, and she rightly presumes Oscar is straight. What she doesn't know is that her married boyfriend had sent Oscar to spy. Later, Newman informs Amy that Oscar is not into girls.

Oscar initially resents such misrepresentation, until he realizes that a) his panic is upsetting his genuinely gay business partner (a dryly amusing Oliver Platt), who takes pride in his sexual orientation, and b) chicks dig queers. Amy and Oscar become so close as friends that she thinks nothing of sashaying nude (albeit coyly photographed) around his pad or confiding to him the type of secrets usually reserved for slumber parties.

McDermott has dreadful comic timing and is inconceivable as either a Donald Trump figure or an object of desire for a bohemian artist--he's too unimposing on the one front and too conservative on the other. It would be plausible for Amy to sleep with Charles in order to fund her work, but their relationship is not played out as a reciprocal arrangement. Perhaps, back in the frothy fifties, Cary Grant and Doris Day could've charmed their way through this dubious affair, but few contemporary actors are capable of substituting charisma for motivation.

Three to Tango is a clumsy intermingling of topical references (such as the resurgence of swing--an opening dance number set to the music of The Brian Setzer Orchestra holds no thematic significance) and the CinemaScope love triangles of yesteryear. A last-minute attempt at social relevance (no Doris Day movie ever finished up at an awards ceremony for gay and lesbian professionals) ignorantly challenges the integrity of Chicago's gay community: would Oscar really be up for "Gay Man of the Year" but a week after accidentally "coming out" in the press? "Three's Company" is Shaw by comparison.

Three to Tango's DVD transfer(s) leave(s) little room for improvement. Presented in 16x9-enhanced widescreen on side A and full frame on the other, both versions have been beautifully mastered for home viewing. The vivid and clean image could be a tad brighter, I suppose. The DD 5.1 soundmix is only colourful during musical interludes, though a single LFE effect, when Newman turns on a virtual reality headset, is impressively startling. Supps include cast and crew bios, a trailer, and brief but interesting notes on the production.-Bill Chambers