The Best Man
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DVD details
Actor: Doug Banks, Jarrod Bunch, Monica Calhoun, Morris Chestnut, Willie C. CarpenterBrand: NBC Universal
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown), Dolby Digital 5.1; English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 5.1
Format: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DTS Surround Sound, DVD, NTSC, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.85:1
Running Time: 120 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2000-02-29
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: Universal Studios
DVD Reviews of The Best Man
DVD Review: Best man is not the best movie. It's kinda mediocre....
Summary: 3 Stars
The Best man is not the best African-American romantic comedy. In fact it's not very good either. A shallow story about a writer who writes a book about an alleged encounter with the groom's bride years before the wedding falls completely apart due to a poorly written script that pushes style over substance. The characters personalities are so one dimensional that I didn't care about them or what happened to them when the groom found out about the encounter. The movie dragged on so long that the upcoming wedding was anti-climatic. It's a shame the writer didn't take time to add some depth to the characters and the story details because this had the potential to be one of the great African-American romance movies.
The badly written story follows Harper Stewart (Taye Diggs) Best man of soon to be married Jock Lance Sullivan (Morris Chestnut) who has published his first novel. Unfortunately, Harper's success is so unrealistic it becomes a major plot hole. Harper's book gets on Oprah's book club, and a friend Jordan (Nia Long) a New York TV show producer has the only advance copy. Harper wants to get the book back before his friends see it, because he's based it on real life events. But that's where the plot hole alls hurts the movie. Jordan wouldn't have the ONLY copy of Harper's book because advance copies are widely available to ALL members of the press. All they had to do is call the publisher and ask for a review copy. Publishers give these away for FREE to members of the press on request so they can write reviews of the book and promote it for them.
A series of mishaps regarding the book and the wedding build up to the long drawn out bachelor party Where Lance finally reads the book. Reading about the alleged past romance between Harper and his alleged bride, Lance goes off on Harper fighting him on the balcony of the penthouse. and the wedding is off. Harper tries to smooth things over so the wedding can go on in the weak conclusion of the movie dancing and smiling at the reception.
I had a bitter taste in my mouth watching The Best Man. Just like in "The Brothers", the depictions of "good black men" were not so positive. These guys may have money, but their internal character issues made them downright unlikable. Harper wasn't the nice guy the producers depicted him to be. He was an arrogant person who didn't care about anyone. He only wanted the book back to save himself, not protect his friends' feelings. If he truly cared about his friends he would have wrote about something else. Lance was a compete jerk. He didn't deserve to married the way he treated his bride. The Terrence Howard character was a womanizer and the other friend was just a dog in training dumping his girlfriend for a stripper. All the men objectify and degrade the women they are with and around. At the bachelor party the movies misogynistic undertone becomes an overtone and tarnishes the story. I kept asking myself: Where was the respect for the sisters? Why weren't the women shown in a positive light as well. As a black male, I hate to think this is the norm in the black community for men to act like this. These "positive" images of black manhood are unacceptable to me. Black Filmmakers have to DO BETTER.
As a Published author and struggling writer, I found this movie to be offensive in its lack of knowledge of the publishing industry. This lack of research in the writing of the screenplay hurts the plotline of the Best Man and ruins a good story. Most times first novels get very little support from the publisher and very little promotion by the media. It would be a MIRACLE for a first novelist to have their book wind up on Oprah's book club. The only promotion Harper would probably get would be from Jordan's show.
First time director Malcolm D. Lee helms a clunky film that runs twenty minutes too long. His boring visuals look more like New York City vacation slides than movie frames. The pictures he shoots don't tell us an interesting story about the lives of people we want to care about, in a city we want to live in instead, he gives us a random series of pictures in a sequence that barely tell us what's going on. Like a vacation slideshow you wind up bored to death hoping the film would end already.
Taye Diggs is terrible as Harper. He's supposed to be a nice guy, but Diggs' arrogant presence makes me hate the character he plays. Morris Chestnut's performance is bad here too. He's a robot just parroting lines without feeling or emotion. When he gets angry you feel nothing from him. The best performance is From Terrence Dashon Howard. TDH is great in almost every movie I've watched him in (Never 2 Big, Big Momma's House, Their Eyes were Watching God) He is truly a gifted actor who rises above weak material and weak direction and makes his characters into real people. He should be a bigger player in Hollywood than he is. Nia Long, Snaa Lathan and Regina King are awful here because Malcolm Lee gives them no direction and the script gives them nothing to do but be Black Barbie dolls dressed up in designer clothes. I wish African-American filmmakers would stop being so misogynistic and give talented Black actresses' three-dimensional character to play alongside the males because well developed women only help make African-American movies better. A whole generation of black actresses is not actualizing their potential because black male filmmakers won't write well-developed female characters.
If you're looking for a good romance movie, Get Love Jones or How U like Me Now cause you can do better than The Best Man.
Description of The Best Man
Harper Stewart (Taye Diggs) is a commitment-shy writer and the best man at the wedding of Lance (Morris Chestnut) and Mia (Monica Calhoun). Unfortunately for Harper, the timing couldn't be worse. His new book is coming out and it chronicles his college life with his friends in a less that perfect light. The wedding party reunites college buddies Quentin (Terrence Howard), Mirch (Harold Perrineau) and love interest Jordan (Nia Long). As the celebration weekend nears, scandalous secrets begin to reveal themselves...for better or for worse. Starring: Taye Diggs, Terrence Howard, Nia Long, Morris Chestnut, Harold Perrineau, Sanaa Lathan, Monica Calhoun, Melissa De Sousa Directed by: Malcolm D. LeeA glossy romantic comedy, The Best Man centers on four college friends and the women in their lives, all brought back together for a wedding. Taye Diggs (How Stella Got Her Groove Back) plays the title character, a young writer whose first novel is a barely fictionalized account of his college days, featuring barely fictionalized versions of all his friends. This novel hasn't yet been released, but ambitious TV producer Nia Long (Soul Food) has snagged an advance copy in the hopes of getting an early interview with Diggs. Unfortunately, when this advance copy begins circulating among the college gang, they discover it reveals some secrets that may have a disastrous effect on the wedding. The Best Man features a handsome, charming cast and a propulsive story, but the female characters are poorly developed and the male banter is, to say the least, chauvinistic. This banter is mostly to comic effect, but by the end it still leaves a sour taste that the movie's happy ending doesn't counter. With a particularly strong performance by Terrence Howard as an aimless but relentlessly honest member of the college quartet. --Bret Fetzer
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