A mix of "Meet the Parents" and "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner,"
Guess Who is just funny enough. Starring Bernie Mac and Ashton
Kutcher, Guess Who tells the tale of Simon Green (Kutcher) as he
travels home with his girlfriend Theresa (Zoe Saladana) to meet
her family. Of course she has failed to mention to anyone,
particularly her father (Bernie Mac) that her new boyfriend is
white.
The movie could have been a serious disaster. It had the
potential to fall into all of the stereotypes we have come to
expect from black and white comedies, "Brining Down the House"
and "Miss Congeniality 2" being some of the worst offenders. And
admittedly there is a little of that: Kutcher's character is
goaded into telling black jokes at dinner with Theresa's family
that includes her racially intolerant grandfather and Mac's
character lies about his daughter's boyfriend to an employee
describing him as a black man named Jama,l who lives in Atlanta,
plays basketball and went to Howard University. However, it
still manages to rise above the obvious racial pitfalls and is a
movie that's fairly funny, a little enlightening and
surprisingly endearing.
The flip side of the movie's attempt not to fall into racial
stereotypes is that it goes a little too far in the opposite
direction. Kutcher's character is the kid from the broken home,
with the single mother and dad who left when he was two. Percy
is the upper class snob who has a love for NASCAR. I know the
movie was trying to make a point that all black people aren't
impoverished or from broken homes and all white people aren't
racist, suburban snobs but sometimes the movie felt like they
didn't even believe what they were trying to sell themselves. It
felt as if they were yelling "Hey look, no really look, black
people can be wealthy, successful and like sports other then
basketball and football," at the top of their lungs.
Other then that Guess Who isn't a bad way to spend two hours of
your life. There is little chemistry between Kutcher and
Saladana but Bernie Mac and Kutcher have some of the best on
screen chemistry for two people who aren't romantically
involved. The scenes where the are playing in door football and
getting drunk are priceless and the sequence where they have to
face a house full of angry women to get their significant others
to come back home is funny, sweet and very believable.
All in all Guess Who is worth your six dollars. It won't get
nominated for an Oscar or be at the forefront in enhancing race
relations but it is not a bad way to spend an afternoon, you get
enough laughs to keep you interested and it's a movie that
appeals to both sexes so you can take a date and everyone will
be pleased.
© 2005 T.S. Johnson
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