What Love Is Review

Messages: Male and female characters are written to type. The men are by turns macho, uncommunicative, and jaded. The women are uber-sensitive, lovesick, or manipulative. There's also lots of homophobic rhetoric. Underneath it all, though, everyone supposedly has a soft side.

Violence: Sal talks about flashing his gun to threaten romantic rivals and actually shows his weapon off when intimidating someone.

Sex: Includes a gratuitous stripping scene in which random female characters gyrate around a pole, but no actual sex acts are portrayed. That said, there are very detailed discussions of oral sex technique and male genitalia, and lots of talk about male and female libido. Sample dialogue: "I could not get this man to go down on me if we were on the Titanic!"

Language: Profanity galore -- from the mild ("damn") to the oh-so-colorful ("f--k"). Women are called "bitches" and "hos," and men are "dicks."

Consumerism: Obvious product placements and non-sequitur mentions of brands like LensCrafters, Makers Mark whiskey, Hallmark, etc.

Drinking, drugs and smoking: Lots. In the first few minutes, Tom downs two shots -- which is only the tip of the drinking iceberg. No drugs, but plenty of cigarette smoking.