Chevy Chase is falling down again, though this time it is due less to his own clumsiness than because he is the victim of pranks being played on him by his future stepson (Jonathan Taylor Thomas, of TV's "Home Improvement").

In "Man of the House," Chase plays a U.S. attorney in Seattle who has been prosecuting mobsters with great success. But when he becomes engaged to the engaging Farrah Fawcett, an avant-garde artist, Chase finds he has to tangle with her son — and sonny boy is none to happy about it.

Mobsters are nothing compared to this.

So, Thomas sets about making life miserable for Chase, in the hope that his potential step-parent will run screaming in the other direction. But Chase is made of sterner stuff.

The setup has Chase moving in with Fawcett and Thomas, though it is played in a fairly chaste manner. This is Walt Disney territory, after all, and the film is aimed at the peewee audience.

Once Chase has moved in, Thomas employs every trick in the book to make Chase uncomfortable. When it becomes apparent that none of his tricks is going to send Chase away (that Fawcett is quite beguiling, after all), Thomas talks him into joining the Indian Guides, which is a sort of father-and-son version of the Boy Scouts with American Indian garb.

At first, they both feel it's rather geeky. But eventually they get into the spirit, and, of course, things work out in the end.

In this case, the end involves a trio of bungling bad guys who want to avenge a godfather that Chase has sent to the pen for 50 years. At this point, it becomes "Home Alone in the Woods," as Chase, Thomas and their Indian Guide friends help take down the baddies, with help from a hive full of bees and a few bows and arrows.

"Man of the House" has the potential to be a real disaster, with its warm-and-fuzzy sentimentality, its weak gags and silly stereotypes. The gangster subplot in particular seems wildly out of place, and I've never been comfortable with movies that have people aiming guns at young children.

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But while the screenplay could certainly be improved upon, co-writer/director James Orr (writer of "Three Men and a Baby," writer-director of "Mr. Destiny") does manage to pace things pretty well, and he has a charming lead player in young Thomas (who also did the voice of young Simba in "The Lion King" — which is blatantly plugged in one scene).

Chase, however, seems to be walking through the picture, as if he isn't even going to bother giving forth an effort anymore. And Fawcett is charming but has little to do.

George Wendt (Norm in TV's "Cheers") fares better as the leader of the Indian Guides, a high school shop teacher who offers words of wisdom from a step-parent. And while David Shiner is obviously a very talented pan-tom-i-mist, his bizarre character — he never speaks, but instead just acts out everything he wants to say — is weirder than it is funny. (There's a painfully unfunny scene that has Shiner helping Chase put up a tent. Both try very hard to perform some slapstick that will make Thomas laugh. But the first rule of slapstick is that if it seems forced, it falls flat.)

Generally innocuous kids' stuff, "The Man of the House" (rated PG for violence and some sexual innuendo) could be worse — but it could also be a whole lot better.

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