MAN TROUBLE has some sort of bad pedigree. It's among Jack Nicholson's lowest rated movies and according to the IMDB trivia it went in theaters and left them after only three days which is quite surprising since Nicholson at the time was an A-list actor. So I had extremely low expectations for it but when I saw it last October I found myself kinda enjoying it for what it was. Not that I loved it but still I didn't hated like most of the other users here.

Classical singer Joan Spruance (Ellen Barkin) is divorced from the conductor and one day she finds her apartment ransacked and receives threatening phone calls by a maniac. The next day she calls guard dog trainer Harry Bliss (Nicholson) that gives her a German Shepherd and after a while Harry and Joan start to feel attracted to each other only to have Redmond Layls' (Harry Dean Stanton) lawyer offer Harry some money for retrieving a manuscript where Andy Ellerman wrote a biography of the boss. Later that night Joan is assaulted by the masked maniac tho she manages to escape. After some misunderstandings between Harry and Joan she'll be saved by Harry after Eddie Revere (who was the masked maniac all the time) wanted to dump her from a hill.

I agree with the other reviewers that in some points it was dumb but still there was a lot to like. The acting by all (Nicholson, Barkin, Stanton, Saul Rubinek and Raymond Cruz) was good and I loved the first minutes where the dog was introduced. Some of the situations made me also chuckle in some points so, based on this a movie can't be that bad.

Overall, one of the lesser movies of the stars probably because it was easy for the audience bash this movie instead of seeing it for what it is. If you manage to lower your expectations you'll end up getting a kick out of it.

1992's "Man Trouble" clearly just doesn't hold much interest or provide much intrigue for a view really somewhat of a letdown from director Bob Rafelson as a complex plot and lack of seriousness weigh the film down. Even though Jack's role seems out of place as clearly the romantic comedy genre has never been his cup of tea. Still Nicholson gives a bold and well done direct performance as Harry Bliss who's a wisecracking womanizer(certainly something Jack can relate to in real life)who runs a guard dog agency of all things! When a woman named Joan(Ellen Barkin)who's a lonely opera singer has her home broken into and robbed she seeks his aid and service. Then Joan moves into the mansion house of her free spirited and eccentric sister Andy(Beverly D' Angelo), yet trouble follows her and Harry as they always seem at the mercy and the target of hit men. The film then takes a wild chase of schemes involving shady characters and hit men that's blended in with the out of control canines and some romance between Harry and Joan. Overall this film is nothing great it moves pretty well yet the plot is so boring and dull with the humor being very offbeat while the romance is impossible for the key characters to obtain. Still it's worth a watch if your a Nicholson fan as Jack always delivers even in bad films, plus Beverly and Ellen both provide a sense of spice and sugar sex appeal to a film that went to the dogs.

With the talent involved here, it should have been a much better film than it is. Music by Georges Delarue, director Bob Rafelson...

Basically it's a lightweight romantic comedy which is attempting to emulate classics comedies about a rich girl meets non-rich guy (think Katherine Hepburn) but it just doesn't have the class or punch of earlier classics in this genre.

The cheap looking opening credits/cartoon are the first indication that something is amiss here. The first half is quite OK but after that, you just don't care enough about these people to stay with the film. There's something incredibly shallow about all those involved and the 'comedy' is just too obvious...problem animal, hispanic housekeeper, mismatched/deceived couples.

I don't think it's until Harry Dean Stanton makes an appearance quite late in the film that you think, aaah, now we've got a movie. But it's all too late.