“This is about you and your big, stupid cock!” Sigh: If only Town & Country were about something as interesting as an oversized, dimwitted penis—or any appendage, for that matter. By the time interior designer Ellie Stoddard (a stammering Diane Keaton) screeches this line at her philandering architect husband, Porter Stoddard (a stumbling Warren Beatty), it has become torturously clear that the befuddled Town & Country can’t decide if it wants to be (a) a chatty sex comedy, (b) a crude, childish sex romp, or (c) a limpcore portrait of wealthy middle-agers doing the nasty (and I do mean nasty). So director Peter Chelsom’s movie, already infamous for its two-years-and-counting release delay, simply opts to be (d) a ripe, voluminous turd. The worse news is that once Keaton unconvincingly delivers her cock retort, there’s still more than half of this interminable two-hour bomb to go. After 25 years of being a good father and an attentive husband (no easy feat when you’re married to squawk box Keaton, er, Ellie), Porter decides to set his pee-pee a-wanderin’. No matter that he’s simultaneously helping his unfaithful best friend (box-office poison Garry Shandling) go through a messy divorce with Ellie’s best friend (Goldie Hawn, whose umpteenth visit to the plastic surgeon has left her face looking like a Mycenaean death mask). Once Porter sees Nastassja Kinski or Andie MacDowell (“I love to fuck architects,” she yawns) or Jenna Elfman—I’m sure these women have character names, but it really doesn’t matter—he just can’t keep his zipper in the upright position. (Fair warning: Watching Elfman kiss Beatty is like watching Dharma eat yogurt.) This often grotesque May-December bed-hopping goes on for a reeaally long time and in various lush locales (Manhattan, the Hamptons, Sun Valley), but there’s not a twist or a chuckle or a viewer-friendly cyanide pill to be found for the duration. The only potentially comedic moments in the film come from Charlton Heston, who, as MacDowell’s maniacal father, plays up his well-deserved reputation as a doddering, denture-sucking, trigger-happy jackass. Beatty’s reactions—shot, like the rest of his close-ups, through a screen thick enough to keep out bats—are simply energy-sucking. Although the second half of Town & Country takes place mostly in the droopy region directly below Porter’s belt buckle, the movie is still never more than a wildly misguided vanity project for the lead actor’s big, stupid head. And when you’re talking about Beatty’s ego, size, unfortunately, matters. —Sean Daly