‘Juwanna Man’ talent bows to hokey script

Sports have rules, but that doesn’t mean all games are the same. At their best, they’re a near-explosive configuration of players whose fates may change in the final seconds.

Hollywood has its usual devices, and “Juwanna Man” follows every one. As a result, the movie is predictable and not particularly funny.

Miguel A. Nunez Jr. plays the dual role of Jamal Jeffries, a basketball player whose ego gets him tossed from the league and Juwanna Mann, whose wig and falsies allow him to play for a women’s team.

This transformation spurs a score of butt-and-boob jokes and some time in a chicken suit. Finally, the lovely captain (Vivica A. Fox) teaches Jamal that only team players succeed. After he exposes his true identity on the game floor, he humbly returns to men’s basketball. And he gets the girl (plus an eyeful of several others in the locker room).

Basketball fans should know there’s little game play except a few lofty leaps and slam dunks. The film, directed by Jesse Vaughan, mostly runs the gamut of drag jokes en route to the warm-and-fuzzy ending.

Drag is a funny thing, and not because falsies slide or straight men might be attracted. It’s a carnivalesque reversal of reality that can reveal a new way of looking at things, as in Shakespeare’s comedy “Twelfth Night.”

In that light, perhaps this film is trying to say that men’s basketball fosters spoiled-child superstars, while the less-glitzy women’s game encourages teamwork and that men could learn from women in this respect.

However, the word “teamwork” in this film is shorthand for passing the ball, and Juwanna hardly interacts with anyone except the captain unless she’s grabbing their rear ends or ogling them in the showers.