Reviews of "Bringing Down the House" and "Dreamcatcher"

By Esther Iverem
SeeingBlack.com Editor and Film Critic

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Queen Latifah has never been anybody's mammy—not on her albums like "Black Reign" (no mammy makes the challenge to the hip hop testosteronati: "Who You Callin' a bitch?"). She was not a mammy on "Living Single," certainly not in that Black classic "Set it Off" or in other film roles, such as her recent role in "Chicago." Of all the Black talk show hosts that have come (and most have gone), she is the least mammy-like. Rather than offer a comforting bosom for White women's problems, she brought an in-your-face confrontational style to talk show controversies.

And she is not a mammy in "Bringing Down the House," a film to which she brings the same in-your-face, hip-hop style. The promotional trailers did the film a disservice. Just as the trailers for "Barbershop" and "Friday After Next" highlighted Black buffoonery and deliberately insulted the Black community, the trailer for this film was designed to do the same, as well as to draw a White audience. Really, if Queen Latifah is a mammy here, then so was Pam Grier. In fact, I think of this movie as a Black women's anti-mammy manifesto and a hilarious exploding of racial stereotype and taboo.

Latifah plays Charlene Morton, an escaped ex-con who forces her way into the life of a divorced tax attorney Peter Sanderson (Steve Martin), who she met in an Internet law chat room and whom she believes can help her prove her innocence. Peter thinks he is chatting with a slim blonde with whom he can begin his first post-divorce relationship. Charlene's entry into Peter's life, of course, is unrealistic, filled with an initial denial of who she is and very awkward. It is a White middle class nightmare of the nig invasion, unfolded with a wink and a chuckle. And much of the movie offers this same wink and chuckle at White people too, as well as an overall absurdity.

Depending on your taste in race jokes and this kind of absurdity, "Bringing Down the House" will either work or bomb. I think it works. Not only does the film offers equal opportunity jabs at everybody, in the process it also shows the ignorance of racism and racists. When Sanderson's White neighbor, played by Betty White, makes her various loopy statements, the audience can laugh at her ignorance. Sure, there will be some in the audience who do think like the neighbor and laugh because of that but, then, they are also laughing at themselves.

While this film might make people of all races uncomfortable, it might especially make some Black filmgoers uncomfortable because we know that racists might watch it and enjoy it. As I've said many times, we want to know that a film is laughing WITH us and not AT us, and it is more difficult to make this determination in an interracial comedy that we don't perceive as mostly created by us. So "Bringing Down the House" is more difficult to accept than, say, "Undercover Brother," which was hilarious but still made many Black folks cringe. (White women as Black men's kryptonite?) And if there was a better balance between the nonstop spate of these types of comedies and serious stories like "Antwone Fisher" the Black audience would not feel so attacked. We would be better able to laugh at ourselves if we were allowed to also do something else OTHER than laugh at ourselves. I also greatly prefer that Whites do race comedy rather than race drama like "Monster's Ball" or "Birth of a Nation," that try to convince us that racist ideas are reality rather than just a joke.

The White main character here, Peter, is more than just uptight, he is almost a social cripple. His friend Howie, mysteriously schooled in slang, probably though MTV, has a thing for large chocolate ladies. Howie showers Charlene with the kinds of attention that she has never received. As Charlene tries to prove her innocence, she also helps Peter to try and reconcile with his wife, while Peter also faces a crisis at work in landing a multi-billion dollar client.

All along the way, there are many funny jokes about America's racial divide, and many assumptions and (mammyisms) torpedoed--that a poor Black woman will readily take no for an answer, that a poor Black woman will not stand up and fight for herself, that a large Black woman cannot be a legitimate object of desire. That a poor Black girl will feel intimidated (and be mammy-like) around White people and not be able to stroll all up in the country club (and kick the hitsay out of some anorexic White chick.) That Black people speak differently because we can't speak like White people, that what we want, most sincerely, is to be White.

Here, a young, Black woman decides to cast aside her aversion and, without sex, teach a White man to be more of a stud. (And yes, this scene does go way, way over top. But here, too, I think of it as a punch at taboo and perhaps a clever commentary on Hollywood's Black girl jungle fever.) A young Black woman decides to even cast aside her aversion to a maid's uniform and help a friend, even if it means playing a temporary nanny or mammy.

Charlene is, literally, free here to make her own life. There is a big difference between the conscious choices made by Charlene and the doting slavish image and responses of a mammy. And it is about time that Black women get a crack at racial spoof, just as Black male comedians Chris Tucker, Martin Lawrence and Eddie Griffin get. On some level, it is all buffoonery, even the act by Steve Martin, but no one calls a White comedian a buffoon. This film is not perfect but, in it, Queen Latifah expands the cinematic options for Black actresses—without taking off her clothes—just as Gabrielle Union did last month in "Deliver Us from Eva."

Long live the queen.

Beer and Aliens

Folks who like to talk film are calling Dreamcatcher just another version of The Thing (1982) or The Thing From Another Planet (1951). And while this adaptation of Stephen King's novel does involve men and aliens, you could also consider it just one extended beer commercial, with very scary monsters thrown in for special effect.

What other than the beer ad aesthetic could produce so many scenes of grown men belching, farting, cursing, obsessing over their johnsons, going for their guns and—above all else—bonding? Beer commercials, which have become pop culture signposts, are always filled with funny guys doing funny guy things. In Dreamcatcher, even when these same guys are about to be gobbled or neutered, they still have a smart-ass remark, a middle finger held high and one last yell of "eat me" at the monster who will, literally, eat them.

With all this foolishness going on, of course, there are overtones of the slasher flick. But instead of hapless teen-agers falling in front of some maniac's axe, the fellas here—Henry, Beaver, Jonesy and Pete—battle an alien who has a nasty house pet and nasty plans for planet earth. As in most slasher films, we establish early on an ambivalent relationship with the possible victims. We meet Henry, Beaver, Jonesy and Pete. We think that they are so strange that perhaps they are the aliens but, then again, they are just Americans, the kind of people who, as one character here says, "drive Chevrolets, shop at Wal-Mart and never miss an episode of Friends."

We learn that they all have a mysterious relationship to a mentally challenged childhood friend. The boy, nicknamed "Duddits," somehow gave them all the special power to read each other's thoughts. And now that they are under attack as grown men, this power and their connection to Duddits makes them big players in world drama. This is where the slasher flick suddenly gets all military. The guys, just regular Chevrolet guys, are as brave as soldiers and can out-do the army defending against aliens, aliens who can disguise themselves to look like us, aliens who want to take us out.

Director Lawrence Kasden (The Big Chill, Grand Canyon) creates a mood that exploits both typical slasher suspense and the bogeyman factor. So you may find yourself alternately grossed out, jumping in your seat or talking to the screen -- Man, why are you even going IN THERE?

Morgan Freeman gets top billing here but quite frankly, it's not clear what his role is all about. He plays Colonel Abraham Kurtz (must be some diversity casting!), a specialist in hunting aliens, all of which he calls "E.T." Like Taye Diggs in Equilibrium or the nameless brother from 1981's Outland, Freeman gets to be the dark spoiler in a sci-fi world. A black man, ever the efficient soldier for the state, winds up challenging the white hero and the right side of history.

Kurtz, along with Captain Owen Overhill (played by perpetual soldier Tom Sizemore), sets the military tone and hard line. Even if the aliens plead for their lives, don't be fooled. Kill them before they kill you. And all those humans infected by the aliens will have to be killed too. Be heartless. Show no mercy.

In the end, Morgan Freeman, et. al teach a lesson about life during wartime. Forget bachelors, millionaires, idols, spongy bleeding hearts or any kind of dissent—reality has invaded and the only question on their minds is: Are we tough enough?

Esther Iverem's reviews often appear on BET.com and Africana.com.

-- March 28, 2003

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