HURLYBURLY — * — Sean Penn, Kevin Spacey, Chazz Palminteri, Robin Wright Penn, Meg Ryan, Garry Shandling, Anna Paquin; rated R (profanity, drug use, sex, vulgarity, violence, ethnic slurs, hospital gore); exclusively at the Tower Theatre.

Some plays are so bad you wonder why anyone would want to make them into movies. Others, such as "Hurlyburly," make you wonder why they were ever produced on the stage in the first place.

Even with the presence of Sean Penn, this scathing comedy/drama is just another example of a fine performance in a truly horrible movie.

The film is unrepentantly misogynistic and so downbeat that it's little more than an exercise in tedium — or worse, an endurance test.

Of course, none of that would matter if it had a point. But by the time it's over, nothing is learned and the characters haven't changed enough to make you care about them.

Penn stars as Eddie, a Hollywood casting agent who has a serious drug problem. Under the influence of cocaine, Eddie is incapable of telling when he's going too far with his obsessions.

For one thing, he's currently squabbling with his roommate and business partner, Mickey (Kevin Spacey, in an ill-fitting hairpiece), for the affections of Darlene (Robin Wright Penn).

Cocaine has also clouded his judgments regarding his friends, in particular Phil (Chazz Palminteri), who's having problems coping with his failing acting career and an even-more-failed marriage. Then there's Artie (Garry Shandling), a smooth (or is that smarmy?) operator who leaves Eddie and Mickey a teenage runaway (Anna Paquin) as a "care package."

Why filmmaker Anthony Drazan ("Imaginary Crimes") thought this one-note material would make a compelling movie is anyone's guess. But his static direction ensures that it doesn't escape its stagy roots.

What's worse, screenwriter David Rabe (who wrote the 1984 stageplay) attempts to emphasize clever wordplay, a la David Mamet. But the too-smart dialogue sounds so ridiculous coming out these characters that it's laughable.

And even though Penn is convincing — as are Spacey and Palminteri, for that matter — his character just isn't very interesting.

Horrible supporting turns by Shandling and Meg Ryan, who is hilariously cast against type as a drug-addled stripper.

"Hurlyburly" is rated R for excessive profanity, simulated drug use (cocaine and marijuana), simulated sex, use of crude sexual slang and some vulgar gestures, violent head-butting and slapping, use of ethnic slurs and glimpses of hospital gore (seen on a television screen).