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The Diva's review of
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The Diva's review of
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WARNING- SPOILERS BELOW.
The Digest
On a moon lit night, Ralph Kramden (Cedric), who drives a bus in New York City, meets the woman of his dreams, Alice (Gabrielle Union). He has dreams of making it big, she has dreams of buying a house and raising a family. Even though they have different goals in life, they take the plunge and get married.
5 years later and not much has changed. They live in a small apartment below their best friends, Edward (Mike Epps) and Trixie Norton (Regina Hall). Norton works for the city and Trixie is a waitress with Alice at a local dive. But Alice is tired of this existence. She wants a house and a yard. Alice and Trixie have a customer who is selling her duplex and they are convinced they can come up with the money if they empty out their savings; work overtime; and borrow a little money from family.
But what the girls don’t know is that Ralph, who is forever chases the NEXT! BIG! THING!, has been dipping into the money to fund all of his crazy ideas and get rich quick schemes. When Alice finds out, she is none to thrilled, but what does Ralph do? He plans several get rich quick schemes to make money, but uses the remaining money to fund each project, including finding a dog in a dumpster and turning him into a race dog. Projects that generally fail. Only digging the hole even more.
Adding to the situation is an unscrupulous real estate dealer (Eric Stoltz) who wants the duplex and will buy it in a few days if they don’t come up with the money quickly. Can they get the money together without letting the ladies know exactly what they are doing? Or will they lose the house all together.
The Dish
Oh man. Where do I begin? Let me say this, I found the movie to be sweet and heartwarming. I was very happy to see a black movie that didn’t have a bunch of foul language, violence, and sex in it. I loved the chemistry between all of the characters. It was clear to me that they all enjoyed being with each other, that much is on the screen. The women were smart and funny, but straight persons to their hapless husbands. In fact I liked Alice and Trixie much more than Ed and Ralph, maybe because I’m a wife.
And let me say that I just love it. I’m so very happy with black cinema over the last year that even when faced with a sub par offering such as this, I can overlook some of the more obvious flaws and still find something to enjoy. We need more movies like this.
That said, there were some issues with this one, most notably the story. It was so far-fetched it bordered on the ridiculous. The story was hard to believe and all over the place. At times, as an audience member, I was overwhelmed by the sheer silliness of it.
I can honestly say, that black filmmakers are going to have to step it up a notch here soon as audiences will be forgiving for only so long. Given that I understand the financial dynamic of Hollywood, I’m still willing to encourage people to get out there and support our movies so more will get made. But we can’t get too complacent and just accept everything they throw at us, but we do have to give them a chance to fill the gap.
You’ll notice that I haven’t touched upon the fact that this is a based on a much beloved set of characters. For one, I haven’t seen very many episodes of the Honeymooners. I am a student of pop culture, so I know who is who, what they looked like, the premise of the show, and I’ve seen 3 or 4 episodes. Aside from the names and relationships, I don’t think you can really make a comparison. The movie is so far removed from the series, that it is almost something altogether different. And on a personal level, I don’t have enough exposure to the original to be indignant about a remake.
The Directive
It is not the best movie ever made , but as always, let’s support our movies – but catch the matinee.
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Rated PG-13 ; running time of 90 minutes 