"Breakin' All the Rules" doesn't bend any conventions, much less break them. This Jamie Foxx comedy is content to offer an endless string of mistaken identities and contrived misunderstandings in the vein of a failed TV sitcom spinoff like "The Ropers." (The plotting isn't quite up to the high standards of "Three's Company.")

Foxx's likable presence and the natural chemistry he has with co-star Gabrielle Union save the film from being completely unwatchable, but earnest fans of the actors are likely to be the only ones mildly satisfied by this tepid comic offering.

The movie establishes its tone with its first scene, where a pug urinates inside a house before making it out the doggie door. (Said pug also breaks wind and gradually becomes an alcoholic. In some ways, the dog is the film's most highly developed character.) The pooch belongs to Helen (Bianca Lawson), a model who decides to break up with her loyal boyfriend Quincy (Foxx) because he isn't particularly good at "sweeping romantic gestures."

Quincy goes into a funk, and his mood is further soured when his boss (Peter MacNicol) asks him to fire 15 percent of the staff. Suddenly (and this all happens very fast), Quincy is an expert in dumping and being dumped. He writes a book, the imaginatively titled "Breakup Handbook," and becomes a best-selling writer.

But "Breakin' All the Rules," written and directed by Daniel Taplitz, isn't really interested in the psychology of breakups or what life might really be like for a man who writes THE book on terminating relationships. Instead, we watch as the Parade of Misread Situations passes by.

Try to keep up: Quincy's boss wants Quincy to help him break up with his gold-digging girlfriend, Rita (Jennifer Esposito), who mistakes Quincy's cousin, Evan (Morris Chestnut) for Quincy, who mistakes Rita for a prostitute. (Understandable.) Meanwhile, Evan wants Quincy to talk him up to his girlfriend Nicky (Union) because he thinks she wants to dump him, but, in reality, Nicky just wants to talk because she cut her hair short and she doesn't think he'll like it.

BUT because Nicky cut her hair short, Quincy doesn't recognize her and the two start to get hot and heavy until Rita leaves a sexually suggestive message on Quincy's answering machine because she thinks Evan is Quincy.

And that's only half of the misunderstandings.

Taplitz the writer isn't anything special, but he does have a knack as a director for delivering the occasional, interesting image and for keeping things moving at a brisk pace. At 85 minutes, including credits, "Breakin' All the Rules" isn't painful - just unnecessary. Foxx fans should wait for Michael Mann's "Collateral," coming later this summer.