Smartorhypo Highly Overrated But Still Good

FuzzyTagz If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

Rexanne It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny

Fleur Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

pjchatman This is an Black gay film. Not white. Not yellow. Not brown. Black. That said – Maurice Jamal, wrote acted (he plays Sherman's brother Eugene), directed, & produced this film, did a outstanding job of portraying a Black American family & their issues with homosexuality, which for Black Americans is more emotional than other races given the spiritual bond with church & home not seen in other races.This film is about Sherman-Patrick's (he goes by Patrick in New York & his family calls him Sherman) life being upset when he gets news he's a father. Upon arriving home he is confronted with his bullheaded mother, loving sister, resentful brother, & his very self-righteous Aunt. His problems gets worse when his boyfriend follows him to Paris, GA looking for answers (whether Gabriel is his son, & why Patrick lied about his Mother, and his name). This film has some very good drama & comedy, but you have to 'get it'. Since this is not a white-gay, Latin-gay, or Asian-gay film, they won't get it. But I did.The film starts off, yes, sloppy. We are indeed confused when see young Gabriel going to the airport, & then in the very next scene coming back home from the airport with Sherman. Jamal left the whole period of what happened when Gabriel was in New York until after Chapter 3 (the film's chapter, not the DVD). We, at first, are lead to believe that the family knows he's gay. This would certainty explain why he and his Mom argue when they meet after he brings Gabriel home. We even think he knows who Gabriel is for a minute or more. This makes the beginning feel very uneven, only because Jamal decides to tell us later what happened in New York rather than before – which again made the beginning uneven. But when Sherman/Patrick finds Ryan, his boyfriend, on the porch of his childhood home waiting for him (Ryan thought he was having an affair with another man named Sherman), the cat is let out the bag & the film falls into place, & continues from there. There are other silly scenes, but this is the particular character of the director (Cookie's 'crunch', the triple 'gasp', Aunt Lettuce's four sons) and just shows he has unique sense of direction.No film dealing with race and homosexuality is going to be 'perfect', but if it speaks to the intended audience than it accomplished it's goal. To Us (Blacks) we don't see Gay films as an excuse to get naked and swear. We explore the emotional-personal side of the lifestyle and not the sexual that most other races tend to focus on.To quote a white gay person: "'eye candy' seems like too strong a statement considering (again) no love scene, no shirtless scene, not even a muscle shirt... So by any reasonable measure, this is not really a 'Gay' movie." Ahem, Blacks live very different lives, and most are very spiritual. So the Gay experience for us is very different from those of other races. This was Black Gay film; therefore, no sex, no shirtless hunks, no shirtless hunks having sex – that's porn.

Old_Movie_Man I just watched the DVD last night. I laughed, I cried, I laughed, I cried, and I laughed again. The characters are so outrageous and funny. The issues and topics touched upon in this movie are so taboo in African American culture that's it's refreshing to see an director/writer take such chances. It has paid off in an exhilarating and thought-proving movie experience. The actors, particularly Rockmond Dunbar, Loretta Devine, and Jennifer Lewis gave superb performances. The movie was about 10 minutes too long though. The ending is terrific. This is a must see. If the subject matter wasn't so taboo to African Americans, I'm sure it would have won more 1st class nominations. Hats off to Maurice Jamal, a gifted writer and director.

dennhunt I caught this at a film festival, and I won't be surprised if it gets pulled the weekend after it opens in its limited release in New York and Los Angeles. It's just not watchable.This is a disappointing sophomore attempt by Jamal, who resorts to the same old one-liners delivered by stereotypical characters - so wooden and absent of any development that the viewer never quite connects with any of them.Loretta Devine is good - but not great. I've seen her in far better work. Her skills are out of place with the pedestrian acting capabilities of the rest of the cast and the "phone-it-in" direction.The only thing worse than the terrible production values is the predictable story. I found myself looking at my watch half way through the film, hoping for the end after I finally realized I didn't care about the story, the characters, or the outcome of the plot. What a disappointment for the black LGBT community.Save your money - my hunch is that this will be buried in the 99 cent give-away bin at local drugstores.

Ed Uyeshima I got the chance to see a rough cut of writer/director/actor Malcolm Jamal's film at the Castro Theatre during the 2006 San Francisco Gay & Lesbian Film Festival. As an openly gay black man, he lends a particularly unique and contemporary perspective on the Prodigal Son parable with this tale of a class-conscious New York-based magazine writer whose discovery of a ten-year old son leads him back to the family he left behind years ago in his hometown of Paris, Georgia. Those who have seen Cameron Crowe's "Elizabethtown" or Harvey Fierstein's "Torch Song Trilogy" will recognize the fish-out-of-water comedy that dominates the first half of the movie. However, the movie gradually congeals into a more resonant drama of acceptance and forgiveness without foregoing the humor.Despite his bare-bones production budget and a sometimes too facile approach to easy laughs, Jamal has a keen eye for his Deep South setting and especially his characters that manage to sidestep stereotypical treatment. What I particularly like about the family interactions is how Jamal chooses to emphasize the son's elitism that has alienated the family, not as much his sexual orientation. Rockmond Dunbar brings a sympathetic core to the uptight son, Patrick in his current life but Sheldon to his family. However, it's Loretta Devine who shines as his mother Evelyn, a hardened, alcoholic washerwoman who holds her own secrets and rails against her son with fervor. She seizes a great movie moment as she delivers a near-soliloquy at the dinner table near the end. With her foghorn, female-impersonator delivery, veteran scene-stealer Jenifer Lewis plays judgmental Aunt Lettuce with her usual gusto and provides the film's biggest laughs.Most of the cast is terrific - Terri J. Vaughn's supportive sister Jackie, Filipino comedian Alec Mapa as the overzealous metrosexual friend, Sommore's throaty turn as the sassy daughter-in-law, and Jamal's own performance as Sheldon's straight, dim-bulb brother who runs the local butcher shop. The one major fly in the ointment is Joey Costello who comes across far too flighty and naïve as Patrick's partner Ryan. The film has a too-pat though forgivable ending. In a concluding Q&A, Jamal said he just filmed the production in April and is touring this movie in select major cities in special showings through the summer. He hopes for a Christmas release at which point I say check it out. Jamal is a most idiosyncratic comedy talent.