Review by Doug Cooper
Stars Forest Whitaker, America Ferrera, Carlos Mencia, Regina King, Lance Gross, Diana Maria Riva, Anjelah Johnson, Lupe Ontiveros, Charlie Murphy, Shannyn Sossamon, James Lesure
Written by Wayne Conley, Malcolm Spellman & Rick Famuyiwa
Certification UK 12A | US PG-13
Runtime 97 minutes
Directed by Rick Famuyiwa
A laboured culture clash comedy set in LA that falls flat at every turn, this one drags on and on, seeming much longer than its 97 minutes. Mexican Ferrara is in love with African American Gross and both are enthusiastic to get married. They arrange for their respective families to meet for the first time for dinner in a restaurant - the occasion for them to announce their upcoming nuptials. Needless to say, this causes an enormous shock to their loved ones, not least the fathers of the bride and groom (Mencia and Whittaker), who already loathe each other due to a previous argument over a parking problem.
Cue monotonous scenes of the respective fathers trying to out-do and out-impress each other with supposedly uproarious results. Mencie causes damage to Whittaker's high-tech bathroom for example, but the, ahem, comic highlight, is when a goat runs amok just before the wedding, overdosing on Whittaker's viagra pills and then trying to hump him. Hilarious no? Eddie Murphy's brother Charlie, a dead ringer for the star, turns up in a couple of scenes, manically mugging throughout. His desperation is indicative of this painful enterprise. It wears thin quickly and is totally unfunny – I didn't laugh once – and I can only urge you to spare yourselves the wretched experience of sitting through this dreadful opus. It's utterly dire.