Directed by David E. Talbert.
2013. Rated PG-13, 96 minutes.
Cast:
Adam Brody
Taye Diggs
Jennifer Lewis
Boris Kodjoe
Djimon Hounsou
Christina Milian
La La Anthony
When Montana (Patton) learns that her younger sister Sheree
(London) is getting married soon, and before she is, her world is sent spiraling
out of control. Not only is Montana not married, she doesn’t have any
prospects. This is a big problem. She’s been raised to believe that she simply
is not a lady if she’s not married by thirty. That her sister will tie the knot
first is a travesty of epic proportions. At the very least she wants to find
Mr. Right in time to escort her to the wedding which is a mere thirty days
away. Obviously, this is a daunting task, but it helps that she is an airline
stewardess. However, rather than meeting men as she normally would in her
profession, her work buddies talk her into what they think is a genius plan.
They will track down her ex-boyfriends as they travel to see if any of them has
developed into the man of her dreams since they broke up.
Let’s just get this out of the way, first. That is an
astonishingly dumb idea. Setting aside the fact that these are guys that she’s
already found out were not “the one” for one reason or another, the execution
of this plan is idiotic, at best. It involves her dropping everything the
second her pals call her to let her know one of these guys is on a flight, high-tailing it to the airport to
make said flight, and trying to instantly rekindle the flames. Yes, she always
makes it to the plane just in time, but as you might imagine, these guys have
the same problems that caused their break-up the first time around.
In the midst of all the chaos that is her life, she has one
stable relationship with a straight man. She grew up with the guy who lives
across the hall. In fact, they are best friends. His name is William Wright
(Luke). Hey, wait a sec…let me just repeat his name in case you somehow dodged
that sledgehammer. William Wright. WRIGHT. Uh-huh.
The overwhelming majority of romantic comedies are inane, predictable
affairs. This is certainly no exception. The next moment is always precisely
what you think it’s going to be. It simply runs down the rom-com checklist in
order and on time. This strict adherence to the formula drains the life out of
most jokes. It’s hard to laugh when you already know the punchline.
Likewise, it is difficult to get wrapped up in the dilemmas
on the screen when the performances of them are so plastic. Paula Patton
normally does solid work. Here, I can see her ‘acting’ which is empirical
evidence that the performer is doing a bad job. Her voice has the fake quality
of a person trying but failing to prove that they are honest. The rest of the
cast seems to be in a contest to see who can be the most photogenic. They take
turns reciting their lines through the pearly whites of their megawatt smiles, just like in the pic above.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s an impressive looking group of people and an
accomplished bunch of actors, but to this particular production they bring all
the depth of a cookie sheet. The only characters with any spunk whatsoever are
Montana’s partners in romantic crime: Sam (Brody), her gay male friend, and
Gail (Scott), her busty and perpetually horny gal pal. Sam is a walking
stereotype, but at least he gets most of the movie’s best lines. Gail gets the
best gestures and is the most interesting person in the movie. Love her or hate
her, she has a zest for life and an independence sorely missing from the
protagonist. A better movie could probably have been made about her.
Everything I’ve mentioned thus far makes Baggage
Claim a bad movie. Regardless of how terribly they go down, all of
these elements are rather innocuous. They are things that render this fit for
the skyward reaching junk pile of rom-coms, all of which are indistinguishable
from the rest. However, right from the start this is a potentially damaging
film. It repeatedly and explicitly pushes the idea that a woman absolutely,
positively must have a husband or she is a failure at life. Sam impotently
tries to dissuade Montana from this notion once or twice. When Montana herself
comes to understand the fallacy of this ideal, the movie’s own finale
completely undermines her. Honestly, it’s baffling that she believed this in
the first place given the fact that marriage hasn’t actually worked for her
own mother (Lewis), the one pushing this whole mindset. Mom’s been married five
times, and even Montana understands she marries simply for the sake of being
married. This is not a model to live by. The entire thing is an exercise in
archaic thought. Sure, we all want someone to grow old with. Branding someone
worthless for having yet found that person is backwards, at best, and
anti-feminist, if not downright misogynist, at worst.
To blame for this atrocity we have writer/director David E.
Talbert, or Tyler Perry 2.0, as I like to call him. He’s taken essentially the
same path to Hollywood as Mr. Madea. Talbert wrote and directed his own plays
which he successfully toured around the nation targeting African-American
female audiences. His work, that I’ve seen anyway, has a similar mix of
Christianity and secularism, is thematically similar, but tends to be a bit
more risqué. This holds true as their work translates to the big screen.
Unfortunately, Talbert fails to realize that the time for labeling single women
near (or in) their thirties as barren old maids has long since past. It’s also
a terrible message for the young ladies in the audience. I’m not normally a
cinematic moralist. I don’t need movies to have positive messages for me to
enjoy them, but I don’t like to be brow-beaten, either. This is so persistent
with its assertions, it galls me to no end.
MY SCORE: 2/10
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