This weekend The Best Man Holiday came out an it was a really fun movie that pulled me in and got me laughing one minuet, then crying the next, and then getting me back to laughing while I still have a tear in my eye. To me that is the best I can hope for and exactly what I want with this type of movie. This movie is a rated R comedy that follows the standard plot of getting old friends back together in one place, where some of them have fallen out but need to reconnect because they truly need each other. When together the personalities conflict, humor is relied upon and there is things that pulls at your heartstrings to get you really engrossed with what is happening during this snapshot of the people's lives.
Going into this movie, I was thinking that this group was getting together because one of the guys is getting married but that is not the case, the group is getting together for a Christmas weekend just because they are good friends and it has been too long since they were all together.
This movie consists of several main characters who's backstories are introduced very quickly in the beginning of the movie but is a little confusing because there are quite a few characters. The main male seems to be Harper, played by Taye Diggs, who has been having problem with his long time best friend and football star Lance, played by Morris Chestnut, because Harper slept with Lance's wife Mia, played by Monica Calhoun, years ago. Mia is the lynch pin of this group and desperately wants to get everyone back together and on good terms this holiday. Everything in this movie is based on the relationships between the characters and basically everyone has some type of history. Harper and Lance are estranged because of Harper's betray. Harper needs money and is trying to figure out how he can write Lance's biography as his next big book. Jordan, played by Nia Long, is best friends to Mia and old friends with Harper, but at odds with Harper's very pregnant wife Robin, played by Sanaa Lathan. Harper and Lance are old friends with Quentin, played by Terrence Howard, and Julian, played by Harold Perrineau. Quentin is the one of the group who is always making a joke, being inappropriate, making sexual comments and just being entertaining. He is Mia's sister but has a long standing love hate relationship with Shelby, played by Melissa De Sousa. I never really got how Shelby is part of the group except that she used to be in a relationship with Julian (but I think she may be sister to Lance as she is treated like family in the movie). Julian is married to Candace played by Regina Hall, who has some problems with her husband because he is told about an old film that is now on the internet where Candace took money for sexual favors as a younger women. Lots of situations happened and inter-drama amounts the characters. You also have Brian, played by Eddie Cibrian, who is the token white guy in this movie who is dating Jordan.
I liked this movie from start to finish, it kept my interest, I cared about the majority of the characters and liked the drama between them and I laughed more then I thought I would. The beginning was slightly confusing and it took a minute for me to understand which person was linked to who and how, but once the movie got going it made sense. To me Taye Diggs was my least favorite as he seemed to be put in the foreground of the story and it seemed like he was suppose to be likable, but I didn't find him to be as likable as it was pushing for him to be. Because of some of the underhanded things he was doing, and yes some of them where taken by his fellow characters wrong, I didn't find myself really caring about him and therefor the drama between him and Lance was the storyline I was just watching to see the rest.
Terrence Howard was by the far the best in this movie, he perfectly embodied Quentin, who was a character who easily could have been hated but because of how he played it and how you could see the care he had for the people around him was just fantastic. He was crass, inappropriate, high most of the time, and whenever he was on scene I found myself laughing. It was also great how you could see his care for his friends and his genuine affection for his sister.
I was surprised going into this movie that I liked it as much as I did, the story kept me interested, the character interplay was fun, the dialogue was good and it had the right amount of emotion to get you sucked in. I would recommend this to anyone who like character driven stories and these type of situations movies. This was one of the best ones I have seen in a while. There were things that were predictable and it wasn't very original in concept but it was fun and I kinda want to see it again and don't want to wait until it comes out on DVD. Go see it.
My Rating: 3
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