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Last Updated: Apr 11th, 2008 - 10:07:54 |
Sooner or later, some film director was bound to tackle the issue of homosexual or bi-sexual men on the “down low” in the Black community, meaning that these men keep their true sexual preference hidden, often while in public relationships with girlfriends or wives.
“Cover,” an independent production playing in limited release around the country, tackles this thorny subject with mixed results. Director Bill Duke assembles a talented cast and pieces together a plausible story but the production just doesn’t rise above the feel of a television drama or a Tyler Perry-type stage play. There is a difference in the production values of a film such as, for example, “The Great Debaters,” which immerses us in a particular time and place, and a film like “Cover,” which keeps our attention but never lets us forget that we are watching a show.
Duke has directed a lot of television of late, including the recent “Prince Among Slaves” on PBS, but his 1992 cult classic “Deep Cover” certainly showed his ability to build and maintain a sense of atmosphere and place in a theatrical release. In “Cover,” he tells the story of a young, professional couple, Dutch and Valerie Maas (played by Razaaq Adoti and Aunjanue Ellis), who have recently moved to Philadelphia from Atlanta. Dutch is a psychiatrist and, we learn later in the plot, Valerie is a photographer who is a devoted, Christian wife and mother to their young daughter.
Relations between the Dutch and Valerie become strained when Valerie grows uncomfortable with the amount of attention that Dutch spends with a circle of old college buddies, including a married couple played by the mercurial Roger Guenveur Smith and the versatile Paula Jai Parker. The story is told in a way so that we aren’t sure if the suspected affair is with a man or woman.
The tension and suspicions rise while, at the same time, we are shown flashes of an interrogation room where Valerie is being grilled by police detectives about a murder that has taken place. We don’t know who was murdered and we don’t know if Valerie is innocent or guilty. We just know that the law enforcement officials are certainly talking as if she is guilty.
The movie keeps us interested in this back-and-forth, between the drama and the interrogation. Helping it along are good performances by Ellis (“Ray” and “Undercover Brother”) and Adoti, who has played supporting roles in dozens of movies, including “Amistad” and “Black Hawk Down.” Both of these actors, with assists from Vivica A. Fox, Lou Gossett, Leon and the previously mentioned Smith and Parker, help to mitigate the results of an uninspiring script and production. The entire cast, which includes a cameo by singer Patti La Belle, delivers enough so that “Cover” at least gives a sense of the serious issues of infidelity and “down low” behavior, including the deadly spread of AIDS, in the Black community.
This review also appeared on Tom Joyner's BlackAmericaWeb.com,/i>
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