The Best Man
USA 1999
Reviewed by Kay Dickinson
Synopsis
Our synopses give away the plot in full, including surprise twists.
US, the present. Harper, a successful novelist, is about to publish a semi-autobiographical account of his student years. Leaving girlfriend Robin at home, he joins friends whom he met at university in New York for a weekend reunion which is to culminate with the wedding of Mia and Lance (for whom he is best man). Harper discovers Jordan, a television producer whom he nearly slept with at college, has circulated his book among their friends.
It becomes clear that the novel describes a sexual encounter between characters similar to Harper and Mia. During the stag night, Lance realises this, attacks Harper and declares the wedding cancelled. Harper retreats to Jordan's house. They argue and he sleeps on the sofa. Oblivious to all this, Mia and guests gather at the church the next day and await Lance's arrival. Harper convinces Lance to go through with the wedding; he then decides that he and Jordan are unsuited and proposes to Robin.
Review
With The Best Man debut director Malcolm Lee shows recognisable links with the work of his film-making colleague and cousin Spike (acting, in this instance, as c0-producer). But while this new-Lee-on-the-block shares Spike's political approach to film-making in his insistence on interrogating Hollywood's gallery of African-American stereotypes, his film lacks his relative's comedic irreverence.
Set during a weekend reunion for friends who met at college, The Best Man is let down by Lee's well-intended attempt to fill the film with positive African-American role models. The movie's world of yuppie characters, rose-petal baths and constant references to university does at least mark a shift from US cinema's tendency to associate African-American culture with inner-city violence and deprivation. The trouble with The Best Man, however, is that its eager-to-please tone is almost as predictable and limiting as the ghetto haunts of, say, Juice and Menace II Society. In his earnestness Lee forgets that we need engagingly defective objects of mockery for comedy to work and instead falls back on characters who exhibit no demeaning flaws. Most perplexingly there's a lack of logic about the proposed respectability of the main character Harper, a novelist who very publicly dishes the dirt on his friends via a book that is due for heavy promotion on Oprah Winfrey's television show.
With political tip-toeing so high on The Best Man's agenda it becomes difficult to stop oneself from asking why Jordan, the film's ambitious career girl, is left resigned to a single life at the end of the movie, while Robin, the lackadaisical caterer who wants babies, wins the marriage proposal from the leading man. Stereotypes from beyond the domain of racial identity rear their heads after all, notably Murch, the henpecked boyfriend who ditches his nit-picking paramour for a tart-with-a-heart. While harmless enough, these buffoons make us aware of the main characters' lack of comic bite.
Thankfully, the film's double bind - relying on caricatures to raise a laugh, but not wanting to denigrate any African Americans in the process - is eluded by pleasingly acerbic dialogue. An early boys-only poker game zips through the conversational gamut of infidelity with jagged comments ricocheting across the card table until the scene cuts off on an ambiguous note with two of the friends nearly coming to blows. Their motives are left unresolved and such curious, unexplained currents, along with regular comic relief in the form of genuinely sharp one-liners, make for some lively moments. But the film's overarching problem remains that the yuppie lifestyle, regardless of colour, is hardly the stuff of riveting entertainment.
Credits
- Director
- Malcolm D. Lee
- Producers
- Spike Lee
- Sam Kitt
- Bill Carraro
- Screenplay
- Malcolm D. Lee
- Director of Photography
- Frank Prinzi
- Editor
- Cara Silverman
- Production Designer
- Kalina Ivanov
- Music
- Stanley Clarke
- ©Universal Studios
- Production Company
- Universal Pictures presents a 40 Acres and a Mule Filmworks production
- 40 Acres Development Executives
- Andre Hereford
- Ross Martin
- Production Co-ordinator
- Alexis Arnold
- Unit Production Manager
- Debra Jeffreys
- Location Manager
- Kenneth L. Halsband
- Location Supervisor
- Gine Lui
- Post-production Supervisor
- Pamela Reis
- Post-production
- Co-ordinator
- Monica D. Barraza
- Assistant Directors
- H.H. Cooper
- Dale Nielson
- Laurie Jackson
- Michael A. Pinckney
- Script Supervisor
- Shari Carpenter
- Casting
- Robi Reed-Humes
- Associate:
- Yolanda D. Hunt
- New York:
- Jeff Block
- Voice:
- Sondra James
- Camera Operators
- Jon Herron
- Carl Prinzi
- Steadicam Operator
- Jerry Holway
- Art Director
- Wing Lee
- Set Decorators
- Christina K. Tonkin
- Paul Weathered
- Costume Designer
- Danielle Hollowell
- Wardrobe Supervisors
- Jordanna Fineberg
- Careen Fowles
- Key Make-up Artist
- Toy Russell-Van Lierop
- Key Hair Stylists
- Ellin La Var
- Quentin Harris
- Titles Design/Production
- Balsmeyer & Everett, Inc
- Opticals
- The Effects House
- Jazz Musicians
- Drums:
- Lenny White
- Bass:
- Stanley Clarke
- Piano:
- Rachel Z
- Guitar:
- Ritche Kotzen
- Trumpet:
- Cliff Lee
- Conductor
- Stanley Clarke
- Orchestrations
- Ira Hearshen
- Music Supervisors
- Bonnie Greenberg
- Lisa Brown
- Music Editor
- E. Gedney Webb
- Orchestra Recording
- Tim Boyle
- Additional Music Recording/Mixing
- Steve Miller
- Soundtrack
- "What You Want" - The Roots featuring Jaguar; "Your Lights Down Low" - Lauryn Hill and Bob Marley; "As" - Stevie Wonder; "Take It" - Terence Howard; "Untitled" - Me'Shell N'degéocello; "Beautiful Girl" - Kenny Lattimore; "Treat 'Em Right" - Chubb Rock; "As My Girl", "Let's Not Play the Game" - Maxwell; "Poetry Girl" - Eric Benét; "You Can't See What I Can See" - Heavy D & The Boyz; "The Best Man" - Faith Evans; "Bug A Boo" - Destiny's Child; "Wall to Wall" - Ruff Life; "Candy" - Cameo; "Beauty (remix)" - Dru Hill, Case; "The Hotness" - Sean Lee; "Shit, Damn, Motherfucka" - D'Angelo; "When the Shades Go Down" - Allure; "After All Is Said and Done" - Beyoncé and Marc Nelson; "Letter to Chris" - Consuela Lee, Al Harewood, Billy Johnson; "Breakin' My Heart (Pretty Brown Eyes)" - Mint Condition; "Wedding Bells" - Cliff Lee, Consuela Lee, Stanley Clarke, Lenny White; "The Best Man Quartet" - Case, Tyrese, Ginuwine, RL
- Choreography
- Michelle Robinson
- Sound Mixer
- Bill Daly
- Re-recording Mixer
- Peter Waggoner
- Supervising Sound Editor
- Paul Urmson
- Dialogue Editors
- Mary Ellen Porto
- Jac Rubenstein
- Additional Voices
- Greg Baglia
- Rafael Cabrera
- Oscar Dela Fé Colón
- Patricia Floyd
- Eileen Galindo
- Bruce Hawkins
- Mark Anthony Henry
- Larry Stephen Hines
- Kent Jackman
- Joie Lee
- Robin Dana Miles
- Dominic Marcus
- Janice G. Pendarvis
- Jonathan E. Peck
- Gary Perez
- Mark Schulte
- David White
- ADR Editors
- Lisa J. Levine
- Gina Alfano
- Foley
- Supervisor:
- Tim O'Shea
- Artist:
- Jay Peck
- Engineer:
- Matt Haasch
- Stunt Co-ordinator
- David Lomax
- Cast
- Taye Diggs
- Harper
- Nia Long
- Jordan
- Morris Chestnut
- Lance
- Harold Perrineau Jr
- Murch
- Terrence Howard
- Quentin
- Sanaa Lathan
- Robin
- Monica Calhoun
- Mia
- Melissa De Sousa
- Shelby
- Victoria Dillard
- Anita
- Regina Hall
- Candy
- Jim Moody
- Uncle Skeeter
- Jarrod Bunch
- Wayne
- Stu 'Large' Riley
- Frandango
- Liris Crosse
- Lady Madonna
- strippers
- Linda Powell
- wedding co-ordinator
- Willie Carpenter
- pastor
- Malcolm D. Lee
- emcee
- Doug Banks
- DeDe McGuire
- themselves
- Renton Kirk
- Patrick Malcolm
- groomsmen
- Nikki Tillman
- Lena Moore
- Rebecca Brody
- Gena Lue Sang
- bridesmaids
- Linda Murrell
- Willie Gaskins
- Lance's parents
- Emilie Gaskins
- Don Clark Williams
- Mia's parents
- Charltina 'Chasha' Banks
- Aleisha Allen
- flower girls
- Vance Allen
- broom bearer
- Certificate
- 15
- Distributor
- United International Pictures (UK) Ltd
- 10,827 feet
- 120 minutes 18 seconds
- Dolby Digital/DTS/SDDS
- Colour by
- DeLuxe