*This is a reprint of our 2015 Sundance review.

Having retired from his role as the Hiphopopotamus, Jemaine Clement frequents our living rooms and theaters all too infrequently. His 2014 cameo in Muppets Most Wanted didn’t nearly suffice to fill our favorite Kiwi quotient and we’ve yet to take in his lauded vampire comedy What We Do in the Shadows [Editor’s note: we’ve now seen Shadows. We loved it.] Nor can we really kid ourselves into believing that Clement’s existence beyond Flight of the Concords has been far-reaching – though his role as Boris the Animal was an easy highlight of Men in Black 3 and tapped into his unrealized Hollywood potential. So it’s with a heaving sigh of relief that we can announce that Clement has finally been given a role worthy of his gawky stature in the delightful, funny and tender People, Places, Things. Read More

“The Best Man Holiday”
Directed by Malcom D. Lee
Starring Taye Diggs, Morris Chestnut, Monica Calhoun, Melissa De Sousa, Regina Hall, Terrence Howard, Sanaa Lathan, and Nia Long
Comedy, Drama
123 Mins
R

The Best Man Holiday is half of a fun Christmas comedy. The other half is a way-too-long, predictable, cliché of a drama. It’s fitting that Malcolm D. Lee is Spike Lee’s cousin, as they are the opposite kind of black filmmakers. Spike’s films focus on social problems and have something to say, while Malcom makes crowd-pleasers. This isn’t to say that there isn’t a place for crowd-pleasing films aimed at aging black women, they’re just not necessarily my cup of tea. If internet demographics are any indications, and you are reading this, it probably isn’t for you either.

That said, the screening I attended was the most packed I’ve ever been to. A crowded venue laughed endlessly, hooted, hollered, and cracked jokes the entire way through, while absolutely eating up Lee’s work, making the experience much more enjoyable. As I have not seen The Best Man, I felt like I wasn’t in on some of the jokes, but the film starts with a summary of the first that did a good job of catching me up. I half expected it to say, “Previously on The Best Man” like a new season of a BET series.

To be as objective as possible, the first half of this is a clever comedy script, with several good laughs. Every character has a distinct personality, their own agenda, and they riff off each other well. Terrence Howard stole the show in his scenes, playing the comic relief in a film where every character has Whedon syndrome (they are far too clever for their own good). He also provided some of the only enjoyable moments in the awful second half. Taye Diggs returns as Harper, the intellectual writer, desperate for money, who is trying to cash in on his famous football star friend Lance. Of course, every character is ridiculously famous and successful because this film is predicated on pure realism.

Unfortunately, the women in the film are defined by their male counterparts. They exist to mediate misunderstandings and scarcely talk about anything other than men, while also being at each other’s throats over previous sexual encounters with some of their respective spouses. Make no mistake, these characters were written by a man.

A convention that really needs to go, because it is pure lazy writing, is this: the misunderstanding that would be easily explained away, but the character does not try to explain it or the other party won’t listen. For example, every romantic comedy, where the protagonist gets kissed for a split second by a drunken girl, right as his significant other walks in. She will walk out and he will say, “No. Wait.” But he won’t do anything else. This convention is used three times in this film and every times it is so poorly executed that you see it coming miles away. Making it more disgraceful is how blatant it is. The character literally says, “Wow it would really look bad if so-and-so saw this out of context.” Gee, I wonder what’s going to happen. The problems inevitably work themselves out, even though the easy explanation never happens.

All of this isn’t enough, as Lee wants to drink your tears. The serious turn in the second half is so laughable that it was like one of those extremely satirical “dramatic” South Park episodes. To call it a spoiler would be as big an insult to your intelligence as calling your inevitable aging a spoiler, but I will refrain. This plot device brings everyone together, making everyone bummed out, before making them eventually triumphant. It wouldn’t be shocking to find out that Judd Apatow was responsible for the final cut of this nonsense.

Meandering, preachy, and cliché, there is nothing else to say about it. Every serious scene ends with a Terrence Howard line to try and lighten the mood, but it’s not enough in a film stuck dragging its feet in an otherwise pleasant Christmas comedy. The only thing Christmasy about this film, though, are the religious overtones at the end, as some of the characters talk at length about the importance of faith and prayer, while briefly touching on the problem of evil. Other than that, this has more penis jokes and cat fights than any other Christmas movie I’ve ever seen.

I know I’m repeating myself here, but there is really so little about this film that isn’t surface and contrived. If there were more to warrant a merit-based discussion, this wouldn’t be such a scathing review. Hey, though, if you only have 50 minutes and like this kind of humor, catch the first half and read a synopsis of the second. If you loved the first film, you will probably like this, as you probably have a lot more investment in these characters. For a first time viewer, though, it fails to build that bond. It’s one of the few movies I recommend seeing with a crowd. That means it’s bad.