THE BEST MAN
Reviewed by Harvey Karten Universal Pictures/Forty Acres and a Mule Productions Director: Malcolm D. Lee Writer: Malcolm D. Lee Cast: Monica Calhoun, Morris Chestnut, Melissa DeSousa, Taye Diggs, Terrence Dashon Howard, Sanaa Lathan, Nia Long, Harold Perrineau Jr.
Like "How Stella Got Her Groove Back," this film is yet another story of the romantic woes of members of the African-American middle class. None of the characters in Malcolm D. Lee's "The Best Man" have money problems and so all can concentrate on backbiting and expressing doubts about sentimental subjects like fidelity and commitment. The movie stars Taye Diggs, who got a fortuitous start in the business as the 20-year-old med school hopeful being romanced by a 40-year-old San Francisco stockbroker in Kevin Rodney Sullivan's aforementioned "Stella." As then, Diggs, who appears to have a stellar career ahead of him, gets plenty of opportunities to display his muscular physique. Too much time, in fact, as "The Best Man," at just under two hours, wears out its welcome considerably before its superior final third, the point in which all problems are resolved and the principal couples--kept apart for most of the movie's elongated duration--are solidly bound together as is the custom with by-the-numbers romantic comedies.
The wholly predictable tale, which evokes scant laughter from situations flattened by repetition, focuses on a group of educated men and women in their twenties who, as you might expect, talk endlessly about their love lives and jive each other on the mistakes made in the past which have come to haunt them. The title character at the center of the tale, Harper (Taye Diggs), has just published his first novel called "Unfinished Business," which is a thinly disguised account of the people in his life. (Strangely enough, though this is Harper's first contribution to the literary world, the newly published tome is already in paperback.) Like many pieces of fiction, the work simply disguises the names of the characters but extracts actual circumstances that befall them. This is the sort of book that gets the real-life people on whom it is based downright angry, exposing intimate details of their lives including the liaisons that they are not supposed to have had. The principal revelation that sets Harper's circle of friends fuming and threatens their love lives involves an alleged one-night stand that he had had with Mia (Monica Calhoun, who is about to marry Harper's best friend, college football star Lance (Morris Chestnut).
One gets the impression from Lee's film that the men are irresistible, judging by the way their women dote on them despite their straying. Ironically the person most upset by the possibility that his fiance has not been faithful to him is a male, Lance, who can't put Harper's book down once he realizes the true-to-life nature of the work--especially since it hints of the relationship that Harper had with the woman he is about to marry.
Some of the genial personalities who inhabit Lee's movie are Jordan (Nia Long), a workaholic former flame of Harper's, who calls herself a horny nutbasket and is determined to bed the upcoming author; Murch (Harold Perrineau Jr.), a shy member of the circle who gets lucky at a bachelor party; Quentin (Terrence Dashon Howard), who is quite talented with the guitar but seems to be aimless; and Shelby (Melissa DeSousa), a whiner who needs convincing that she likes men at all.
Lee takes us through a swinging bachelor party, a couple of fights, and a whole lot of rap sessions that the guys hold about women. I was surprised to hear how many times the "n" word gets used--not out of hostility of course, but in the mocking way that some African-Americans have treated the word for over a decade. Considering the level of education of these fellows, this particular obscenity would seem to have no place and is particularly annoying even when used in an obviously playful manner. "The Best Man" offers nothing new on the subject of male bonding and the endless roundelay of discussions of the opposite sex.
Rated R. Running Time: 118 minutes. (C) 1999 Harvey Karten
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews