BEFORE: This one's been on the list for a while, I'd been trying to get it to land on Father's Day, but I think that ship has sailed, a few times now. It's a tough one, so if I see that it can serve a purpose here and help me get to "The Phoenician Scheme", I feel like I really should take that. But here's the problem, it took me too long to link to it, so the film is gone from cable, it's gone from Amazon Prime and it's WAY gone from Hulu. Sure it might cycle back to cable at some point, almost everything does, but now I can't possibly predict when that might happen - it feels like maybe this film's in limbo and there's just no demand for it at all. Sure, I could rent it from AmazonPrime, but I'd rather not, and it would be great if I could watch it on iTunes for like $1.99, but's it not on that service at all. The only place it seems to be streaming is via YouTube, and there's this new channel there called MovieSphere that seems to have bought up the rights to a bunch of movies. I went ahead and subscribed for a 7-day trial, and unless I see another movie on my list that's there and nowhere else, I plan to cancel later today so I don't get charged at all. Yep, it's the old Apple TV+ scam, I can just join and watch the movie I want, then cancel without paying a dime, and I'm guessing I can do that multiple times. Ha ha!
Idris Elba carries over one more time from "A House of Dynamite".
THE PLOT: A mechanic is struggling to raise his three daughters when his ex-wife and her drug-dealing boyfriend file for custody. He struggles to file charges against them and during the way he falls in love with his attorney and inspires his neighborhood to fight back.
AFTER: This is one of those films that had zero focus, or maybe too much focus, as in focusing on too many things at once. It's a romance, it's a racial drama, it tries to be a slice-of-life comedy at times, and really, you can't just slip between these different things and end up being all things to all people. I'd listed it as a Father's Day film to try and make something useful out of it, but it's not really romantic enough to be a romance and not funny enough to be a comedy. BUT I will say that by just linking to it randomly, I can sort of justify it as a Martin Luther King Jr. Day film, because at one point all of the characters are assembled together at a community meeting, talking about how they need to improve their neighborhood, because MLK himself once walked through it. So there, you see that the chain knew where it belonged, even if I didn't - and I was just ONE day off from landing it right on the holiday itself. (Damn, if only I'd dropped "Fixed", I would have hit it spot on. I hope that's not an indication that I should have dropped "Fixed" and now I'm going to be one film over my quota for the year...
I had sort of declared a fatwa on Tyler Perry films, because so many of them look so insanely stupid - the whole "Madea" series, for example. BUT I had a moratorium on body-switching moveis, too, but then "13 Going on 30" slipped in and then "Family Switch" and before you know it, that led to a double-dose of "Freaky Friday" and "Freakier Friday". So last year I watched "The Six Triple Eight" and it was fine, so really, that gave me cause to re-visit the Tyler Perry genre, however I'm still firmly against reviewing any film in which he wore a dress. Like, fine, do that on your own time if that's your kink but don't tell me it's all for art's sake, I don't have to watch that if I don't want to. The same freedom that allows people to cross-dress allows ME to not be 100% OK with it. You can justify it however you want, you can say that people are just finding themselves, but they were RIGHT THERE before, why couldn't they find themselves then? So I just think for drag queens it's all about the extra attention, prove me wrong.
Anyway, as far as clear points of view go, it's a good idea to have one, but it's usually a bad idea to have too many. In the name of social justice this film takes a stand against courts automatically granting custody to mothers over fathers, drug dealers, child abuse, false accusations against black men, how hard it is for African-Americans to get ahead, and how hard it is for any parents to raise children in our society, and how hard it is for black women to find a respectable partner with a decent job and no criminal record. Jeesus, pick a lane already, or did Tyler Perry think he could somehow solve all of these problems just by making a film about them?
Single father Monty works at an auto-shop, and he's slowly trying to buy the shop from its owner, though it's going to take a few hundred more payments. His progress would be helped if he could make more money, so he starts moonlighting as a driver, on the advice of his next-door neighbor, who works for a law firm. Julia, the attorney that he drives around, however, has a problem with nearly everything he does and says, so they don't really get off on the right foot. She's actually a rare bird, a notable black Karen, also a nepo baby whose father started the law firm, and she's more entitled than she has any right to be. When Monty diverts from the route because his daughters started a fire while they were home alone and unsupervised, and Julia can't believe this horrible thing is happening TO HER, whereas a decent human would have maybe understood that this man's daughters are in trouble and he needs to check on them immediately.
What makes matters worse is that his ex, the girls' mother, is also at the hospital with her drug dealer boyfriend, and a Social Services representative determines that the three girls were left at home by Monty, with no supervision, and custody is granted to their mother, who before long starts to teach her eldest daughter how to sell weed. Umm, sure, great parenting skills there, but the screenplay is obviously stacked against their mother, and any attempts by Monty to stand up for himself in court are shot down by the judge due to lack of evidence. Geez, if only he knew a real lawyer who could help him out, but unfortunately he just burned that bridge. However, Julia then goes on several more disastrous blind dates with men who seem fine at first but turn out to be married or perverts, so she follows the advice of her two girlfriends and relaxes her standards a bit, then she sees Monty in a different light.
They grow together while working on his case, however this is a MASSIVE conflict of interest, for a lawyer to fall in love with her client and date him while she is also representing him. They should do the right thing and table their relationship until the case is over, but come on, then the movie would be three hours long. What's weird is that Julia's friends are then shocked when they find out she's dating her former driver, I guess they wanted her to relax her standards, only, umm, not that much? The plot just kind of zigs and zags here in ways that don't make much sense, if I'm being honest. I mean, first we're supposed to hate Julia because she's all entitled and judgmental, then we're supposed to like her because she helps Monty with his case, like can we land on one narrative path, please?
She does interact better with the judges than Monty does, that's for sure - but then she finds out that Monty served time for statutory rape when he was younger, and she breaks off the whole thing without looking into that any further - so I guess now we're supposed to hate her again? At this point the owner of the auto shop decides to retire because the neighborhood has too many drug dealers and thugs in it, so he doesn't exactly GIVE Monty the shop (because he can't even afford it at this point, as he's apparently been spending so much time in court and not working) but close to it. Monty finally snaps and crashes his car into his wife's boyfriend's car and then brutally beats him - other drug dealers race down to the street and beat up Monty, which causes the mob of regular townspeople to take up arms against the dealers. It's a full-blown race riot, and the message here is that the cops aren't going to clean up the streets, but the regular people who outnumber the dealers need to take action. This is actually terrible advice, especially if the drug dealers have like weapons and stuff. But sure, it's wish-fulfillment stuff here - community members do have the power to change things, only maybe vigilante violence is not the way to go.
Julia learns from the news that Monty was falsely accused of rape back in the day - which leads to the question, why couldn't HE just tell her that? Anyway, all is forgiven as he turns out to be the only decent man she's found to date, so she comes back to court to defend him. The mob is there, too, to testify against Monty's ex and the drug dealer, and not a single one of them saw Monty crash his car into there. Sure, people can take back their streets, but only if they're willing to lie in court, that's another terrible message right there, the movie seems to be full of them. Well, at least Monty owns the auto shop now, so I guess that makes everything OK?
I'm left to conclude that the main reason this film vanished from premium cable and also streaming platforms is that it's disjointed and rather terrible. Well, it was made early in Tyler Perry's career (his first film without playing Madea and wearing that dress) and maybe he hadn't worked out consistent storytelling methods yet? Or how to get a coherent message across without flip-flopping all over the place?
NITPICK POINT: Monty takes Julia to a jazz club in his neighborhood for her birthday. They park RIGHT outside the club, and there are no other cars parked on the street, so that sure looks like a "no parking" zone to me, plus it's a terrible neighborhood, or so we're told. HOW is that car not either stolen or towed away while they're in the club?
Well, that's it for the Idris Elba films on my watchlist, I've got to follow a different link out of here, but Idris is tied for most appearances in January, and therefore the year, with four. He's tied with Jamie Lee Curtis right now, but it's still very very early, I'm only 1/15th of the way through this Movie Year.
Directed by Tyler Perry (director of "The Six Triple Eight")
Also starring Gabrielle Union (last seen in "Think Like a Man Too"), Louis Gossett Jr. (last heard in "IF"), Tasha Smith (last seen in "Bad Boys: Ride or Die"), Tracee Ellis Ross (last seen in "American Fiction"), Malinda Williams (last seen in "Two Days in New York"), Terri J. Vaughn (last seen in "8 Heads in a Duffel Bag"), Gary Sturgis (last heard in "Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, Part 2"), Cassi Davis, Sierra Aylina McClain (last seen in "Shrink"), Lauryn Alisa McClain, China Anne McClain (last seen in "Hubie Halloween"), Juanita Jennings (last seen in "Runaway Jury"), Maria Howell, Rochelle Dewberry, L. Warren Young (last seen in "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks"), Steve Coulter (last seen in "Hangman"), Sharyn Shields, Leland Jones (last seen in "Till"), E. Roger Mitchell (ditto), Craig Robinson (last seen in "My Spy: The Eternal City"), Danny Kim, Minnie Tee, Donna Biscoe (last seen in "The Six Triple Eight"), Bishop Eddie L. Long, Bennet Guillory (last seen in "The Color Purple"), LaVan Davis, Kate Kneeland (last seen in "One MIssed Call"), Arron Momon, Greyson Chadwick (last seen in "Pain Hustlers"), Ric Reitz (last seen in "Safe Haven"), Giulia Pagano (last seen in "Safe Haven"), Bob Banks, Sharron Cain, Dan Albright (last seen in "I Know What You Did Last Summer"), Sharan C. Mansfield (last seen in "Killers"), Javon Johnson (last seen in "The Hate U Give"), Gordon Daniels, John Beasley (last seen in "The Turkey Bowl"), Monica Pearson, Joan Pringle (last seen in "The Lost City"), Kortnee Simmons (last seen in "Can You Keep a Secret?"), Brian J. White (last seen in "The Cabin in the Woods").
RATING: 5 out of 10 motions to dismiss
No comments:
Post a Comment