MAMA GETS TRASHED

The Bauer gals bicker their way through marital woes, engagement snafus and sexual innuendos.

Reluctantly accompanying her mama to the Himmarshee dump to retrieve the wedding ring she accidentally threw away, Mace Bauer discovers a diamond bracelet among the pork rinds, crab shells and empty dog food cans. The bauble, sad to say, adorns the arm of a very dead young woman bedecked in fetish garb. Mace’s fiance, Carlos the hunky homicide detective, gets the case, which is less interesting to Mama than the plight of her eldest daughter, Maddie, who insists on wearing an unbecoming yellow ensemble to her husband Kenny’s birthday do. Maddie, however, has a more serious problem: Could Kenny, newly obsessed with golf, be having an affair, and what ought she to do about her suspicions? She confides her woes to Mace, who, heading for the golf course to snoop, encounters a dishy if lascivious golf pro and a rapacious lesbian bartender, both of whom know secrets about the pseudo-folksy mayor and his cocktail-swilling wife. The trashed victim turns out to be the starchy librarian, whose twin sister arrives to settle her estate. Mace soon discovers that Kenny loaned his hunting cabin to certain golf club members who used it for swinging sex parties. The place is awash in champagne bottles, cigarette butts and a red thong, making Kenny suspect No. 1 in the librarian’s murder. But Mace and Mama, after escaping car tails, threats left nailed to their house door and hostile neighbors, prove Kenny innocent, while a plot twist readers will see coming from the first mention of twins ends the sleazy tale.

The odd amalgam of porn, gossip and family values overlaid with forced humor is much less fun than Mama Sees Stars (2011).