Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins
Egotistical Talk-Show Host Humbled at Crass Family Reunion
The Welcome Home
Roscoe Jenkins
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Actors: Martin Lawrence, James Earl Jones, Margaret
Avery,
Nicole Ari Parker,
Mike Epps
Format: AC-3, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD-Video, Subtitled, Widescreen,
NTSC
Language: English
Subtitles: English, French, Spanish
Rating: PG 13
Studio: Universal Studios
DVD Release Date: June 17, 2008
Film Review by Kam Williams
Fair (1 star)
Dr. RJ Stevens
(Martin Lawrence) is on top of the world. Not only does he have
millions of adoring fans as the host of a popular TV talk show, but
the egotistical self-help guru has also just published a new book,
’The Team of Me,’ in which he shares his ’winning by any means
necessary’ philosophy.
It’s no surprise, then, that success has gone to his head, given
that he has money to burn, and is engaged to the beautiful, but
equally-insufferable Bianca (Joy Bryant), a recent winner of the
television reality-series Survivor. Now, the shallow superstar is
about to be cut down to size when he leaves his lavish, Hollywood
lifestyle to visit his rural hometown of Dry Springs, Georgia for
the first time in nine years.
The occasion is a family reunion revolving around a celebration of
his parents’ (James Earl Jones and Margaret Avery) 50th anniversary.
RJ boards the plane, accompanied by his 10 year-old son, Jamaal (Damani
Roberts), his, spoiled-rotten fianc’e and her lap dog, Fifi,
determined to show his relatives that he’s no longer the wimpy loser
who never got any respect as a kid.
Before they even arrive, however, we get a clue that the bulk of the
jokes in this fish-out-of-water comedy will come at the expense of
this returning Prodigal Son, when Bianca’s precious, pampered
Pomeranian spills beet juice all over his lap. In fact, this is just
the first of several indignities he suffers on account of critters,
for RJ also meets his match during eventual encounters with a skunk,
a snake and Bucky, a big mutt in heat. Unfortunately, as flat as the
animal slapstick falls, those exchanges are still more amusing than
any between our humbled hero and members of his dysfunctional
family.
RJ,
we learn, has understandably changed his name from Roscoe Steven
Jenkins, Jr. out of embarrassment. For, he hails from an
African-American version of Southern white trash, a motley crew of
backwards rubes who don't take kindly to their kin’s
recently-acquired, high-falutin’ airs.
There’s pea-brained brother Otis (Michael Clarke Duncan) and slutty
sister, Betty (Mo’nique), who boasts about being ’too much woman for
one man’ while pursuing her interest in committing incest. And we
have cousin Clyde (Cedric the Entertainer), a womanizer who got all
the girls, including the heart of RJ’s childhood crush, Lucinda (Nicole
Ari Parker), and another cousin, Reggie (Mike Epps), who crudely
propositions Bianca with disgusting pickup lines like, ’I'll drink
your bathwater.’
These characters, played mostly by comedians, seem to be taking
turns doing their expletive and N-word laced standup acts. This
pathetic picture’s brand of humor trades in tiresome, mean-spirited
and self-loathing jokes about Forest Whitaker’s wandering eye,
Minister Farrakhan and eating pork, good hair versus bad hair, and
light skin versus dark skin.
Brace yourself for such lowbrow sight gags as shaving initials into
pubic hair, sado-masochistic sex and dogs mating. If lines like,
’I’m gonna slap the black off you,’ ’Faster than a runaway slave,’
’Heifer, I’m gonna cut you up,’ and ’B*tch Ain't got no class!’ make
you laugh, then Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins might be right up your
alley.
Not even a soulful soliloquy before the closing credits about the
importance of family could undo the damage already done by this
otherwise impressively pointless minstrel show.
Related Links
Nicole Ari Parker:
The Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins Interview
with Kam Williams
http://aalbc.com/reviews/nicole_ari_parker.htm