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Martin Lawrence’s inexplicably lengthy screen career putters on with all the grace of a gangrenous racehorse in this crushingly conventional ‘home to mom’ ensemble comedy which contains all of the mandatory fat/smell/booty gags that the star’s filmic oeuvre tends to cherish.
Essentially a poorly written black riff on ‘Meet the Parents’, Lawrence plays Roscoe Jenkins, a vacuous city slicker and TV self-help guru who has rejected the downhome values of his strict upbringing on a Southern homestead. His cultural re-education begins when he is invited – along with his reality TV star fiancé – to his parents’ 50th wedding anniversary, where he is forced to face up to all manner of adolescent trauma and re-stoked sibling rivalry.
Comedians Mike Epps and Mo’Nique – respectively Roscoe’s cousin and sister – effortlessly steal the show with their salty and perfectly delivered patter, leaving you wondering if perhaps it should have been their names under the title and not the mugging, unlovable Lawrence.