BRINGING DOWN THE HOUSE

Submitted for August's Drum so will have to wait until September etc.

Ladies and gentlemen. Should you go to see Bringing Down The House – and I urge you not to – then please do not take it personally. There is every chance that you will leave the cinema feeling insulted at every conceivable level. Violated even. But remember, none of those involved in making this film - ‘director’ Adam Shankman (remember the name), or ‘stars’ Steve Martin and Queen Latifah - meant it personally.

An undignified trudge down the well-trodden path of culture-clash comedy, Bringing Down The House features Martin as a buttoned-up lawyer who believes that he is conducting an on-line romance with a slim, attractive blonde. Imagine his surprise when it turns out that his cyber-date is actually king-sized, sass-mouth ex-convict Latifah! Or don’t! Your choice!!!!

This tired concept is thinly spread, like a very unfunny paste, over the film’s 105-minute running time. In the course of a series of ‘you can take the monkey out of the jungle’-style mishaps and misunderstandings, and other more standard gross-out anti-comedy moments involving laxatives and elderly people, Latifah teaches Martin to loosen up, and in turn learns…. well nothing in particular. But let’s not let that get in the way of all the fun!!

Latifah cashes in all the good-will chips earned for her ballsy, Oscar-nominated performance in ‘Chicago’, turning in a desultory performance of eye-rolling, neck-snapping, teeth-kissing ignominy. How did they coral such a talented, strong-minded woman into participating in this depressingly witless farrago?

Eguene Levy plays Martin’s sleazy best friend, who finds Latifah irresistibly attractive. This in itself is another of the film’s running non-jokes. The notion that the White Levy should be attracted to the Black Latifah is treated as implicitly hilarious, as if it were some sniggersome peccadillo, akin to being exclusively attracted to amputees or chimps.

Spike Lee’s 2001 film ‘Bamboozled’ concerned a young Black writer, who creates a deliberately offensive Producers -style minstrel show in order to get it thrown off air but to his horror, finds himself with an unexpected hit on his hands. Part of me is still waiting for a shame-faced would-be prankster to go public and admit that Bringing Down The House is just a terrible practical joke that got out of hand.

We deserve better. Or do we? As long as there is an audience for this type of lazy, blithely racist cack, it will continue to get made. But either way, don’t take it personally.