|
Just when you had finally managed to erase your bad memories of "Norbit," along comes "Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins," another uncommonly mean-spirited comedy that trades on every African-American stereotype on record.
Buried deep within writer-director Malcolm D. Lee's screenplay is an intriguing story about an upwardly mobile black man trying to assimilate into the white world without betraying his humble roots. But first you have to endure 100-plus minutes of people knocking each other senseless, in between cracking cruel jokes about fat women, nerdy kids, gold-digging divas and even rib-eating carnivores.
Martin Lawrence plays the title character, a successful Jerry Springer-like TV talk-show host who is cajoled by his parents into attending their large family reunion in Georgia. Roscoe has stayed away for nine years, mainly because he's never been able to earn the approval of his stern father (James Earl Jones). He would also much rather forget his childhood rivalry with his cousin Clyde (Cedric the Entertainer), who -- during a family reunion two decades earlier -- stole the girl of Roscoe's dreams from right beneath his nose.
As with last year's "Wild Hogs," the normally antic Lawrence plays the straight man, a role that suits him surprisingly well. Roscoe suffers one indignity after another: A strident fiancee (Joy Bryant) refuses to offer any moral support, and his sister (Mo'Nique) and cousin (Mike Epps) relish any opportunity to recount humiliating stories from Roscoe's youth. Even his ultra-buff older brother, played by Michael Clarke Duncan, seems to exist solely to point out to Roscoe that his muscles aren't very big. Lawrence endures all of this punishment with grace and even sweetness, so that we actually start to root for Roscoe to hook up with his childhood sweetheart, Lucinda (Nicole Ari Parker).
A shame, then, that Lee ("The Best Man") didn't have a bit more faith in his leading man -- or, for that matter, in the audience. Every few minutes, "Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins" stops cold so that the characters can engage in a nasty fistfight or mock each other's physical appearance. The lack of good will among these people is epidemic, and more than a little bizarre. (Even among families who love to hate, you usually find some glimmer of tenderness.) The movie builds to a deeply misjudged climax, in which Roscoe's behavior is so extreme -- he betrays his young son (Damani Roberts) in an attempt to beat Clyde at a relay race -- that the audience turns on him completely.
Left stranded on the sidelines -- as women, black or white, so often are in Hollywood movies -- are a number of gifted African-American actresses. They include Margaret Avery ("The Color Purple"), who, as Roscoe's mother, endures the family's obnoxious behavior in appealingly dignified silence; and Parker, who manages to take a barely written part and serve up an affecting portrait of a woman in her late 30s who's taken a few knocks in her life, but is determined to carry on.
These two actresses hint at the movie "Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins" might have been, if only the filmmakers hadn't been so determined to pander to the lowest common denominator.
C-
Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins
Director: Malcolm D. Lee
Stars: Martin Lawrence, Cedric the Entertainer, Michael Clarke Duncan, Nicole Ari Parker
Running time: 1 hr., 54 min.
Rating: PG-13 for crude and sexual content, language and some drug references
Location: Opens Friday in theaters everywhere |
