Patrick Dempsey stars in this light farce as Randy Bodek, a college student who's alienated his father (Robert Ginty) by doing poorly in school; consequently, tuition payments have been cut off, leading Randy to take a job as a pizza delivery boy for the summer. One day he encounters Ms. Alex Barnett (Barbara Carrera), who asks for more than pizza when he shows up to make a delivery. Later she sets him up in business, passing his card around to other bored, wealthy Beverly Hills women--and the enterprising youth realizes he'll be able to pay for his entire education by simply living up to his name. The women, who include Kirstie Alley and Carrie Fisher, also teach him to replace his boorish persona with a more civilized demeanor. Dempsey proves himself an able farceur in this comic romp that also features a sombrero-shaped delivery truck. Kate Jackson is excellent as Randy's mother. Theatrical release: April 28, 1989

'Lover Boy'' should have had the courage to admit it is hopelessly tacky. Why fight it, when the film's recurring joke is that ''extra anchovies'' is a code for sex? Randy (Patrick Dempsey) is a pizza delivery boy who is seduced by a wealthy older woman (Barbara Carrera), though the on-screen discretion of this seduction would suit a Disney film. She thoughtfully gives him $200 for college tuition, then passes his number on to her friends. Before long, women all over Beverly Hills order salty pizzas they never get around to eating. This enduring adolescent male fantasy of being educated by an older woman is cleaned up for commercial-movie purposes and used to produce a formula film that is amazingly predictable. Does anyone doubt that jealous, hulking husbands will eventually get in one car and hunt down the scrawny Randy?

Joan Micklin Silver, whose last film was the hugely successful and incredibly sappy ''Crossing Delancey,'' directs ''Loverboy'' as if Randy were really delivering pizza. It is that unexciting, that nonsexual, that reluctant to admit that Randy's life is a little more lurid than the average college kid's.

He is a middle-class guy whose father refuses to go on paying for college because his son has goofed off. We're supposed to believe that Randy turns into a pizza prostitute so he can earn money to get back to campus and his true love, the wholesome Jenny.

But the lovelorn women who order up his services are just as wholesome, including a doctor (Kirstie Alley) who wants to get back at her philandering husband. She and Randy kill some screen time doing Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogers dance numbers. This allows Randy to give a self-justifying speech at the end, which serves as the film's cynical disclaimer. ''There are a lot of women out there who don't believe in love anymore,'' he tells Jenny. ''They just wanted a little romance.''

But like its hero, ''Loverboy,'' which opened yesterday at the Criterion Center and other theaters, seems out to make some quick, easy money. Jenny is forgiving. Audiences shouldn't be so gullible.