Just Wright (2010)

Listen, I'm not made of stone. I'm not "against" romantic comedies per se. It's like I say about musical genres, from time to time, it's pretty much like any other human endeavor: there's good and there's bad. Unfortunately, for the Rom Com there has been a lot more bad to excruciating of late. (As a measuring stick, when I think of a "good" romantic comedy, I am thinking of say an Annie Hall or When Harry Met Sally.) Not to say Just Wright is excruciating. In fact, its probably the nicest and most amiable movie one would see in a long time. I'm serious. It stars Common and Queen Latifah, Common plays a star basket ball player who gets hurt, and Latifah plays the physical therapist who helps him both physically and mentally and spiritually. Even from that description you can guess what happens. The lead couple is just very nice, as are her parents, one played by Pam Grier, and even her cousin who provides the only "obstacle" in their relationship is a gold digger, sure, but is hardly the worst you've ever seen. I mean what can you say about a movie that offers so little dramatic tension that even the climactic scene where Common comes back on the basketball court just lands with a thud, because there is absolutely no question of what is going to happen. So, I don't know, there's just nothing there, but a nice portrait of a nice couple who eventually (SPOILER, I guess) rises above very small odds to be together. I will say though that Queen Latifah actually is good at this sort of thing, but I think she needs to find another outlet for her talents. Common, on the other hand, while being amiable enough here, is a terrible terrible actor. So, yeah, in the end, this is a movie that is basically like cinematic tapioca: it goes down super smoothly, seems a touch long because there is zero surprises, and is filling enough, you guess. I'll put it this way, besides my wife and I making jokes, the most excited I got was when they used a Mos Def song in one scene.

On a sort of side note: I have to remind mediocre to bad movies of something. Don't put things in your movie that remind me of better things. At one point Common puts on the television and they watch Romancing The Stone. Yeah, I'd MUCH rather be watching Romancing The Stone, that might quicken the pulse a whole lot more than this movie ever did.