Tyler Perry is at it once again. This time attempting to bring us a purely tongue-in-cheek romantic comedy, that delves in to a very much chartered territory. He produces this one, but he didn’t write the screenplay or star in it despite the fact that we have pretty much become accustomed to his multi-layered talents and multi-layered involvement. Consequently, I hate to say it, but this latest effort would probably have been a stronger film if he did follow his usual MO and involvement by playing a bigger part.
Craig Robinson (The Office – TV series), in his first starring movie role, plays the somewhat awkward, badly dressed, but calm cool and collected Wade Walker, who’s meeting the family of his girlfriend for the first time. He does a somewhat mediocre job with the part and doesn’t seem to fit in quite well with the lead role in a romantic comedy. I would go as far as to say that the role would have been better suited to someone like Martin Lawrence (Bad Boys, 1995) or Will Smith because Robinson is neither funny enough nor is he diverse enough, in range.
On the other hand, Kerry Washington (Django Unchained, 2012), plays the daughter of a ball-busting federal judge and patriarch played by funny-man David Alan Grier (In Living Color – TV series). She takes on the role of a seemingly innocent and charming, Grace Peeples and is poised, sexy and brings lots of convincing charm to the role. She is certainly a pleasure to watch bringing her character to life; Though, I didn’t feel that her sweet little-sister character was a good match for Robinson’s clumsy character that at times did not play off of each other quite well romantically. READ FULL PEEBLES FILM REVIEW >>