The Best Man Reviews

Writer-director Malcolm Lee skips the politicking and proselytizing favored by his cousin Spike (who helped produce) for glossy, frothy soap opera in the tradition of WAITING TO EXHALE, a throwback to the slickly entertaining melodramas of Hollywood's golden age. Harper (Taye Diggs), who's just sold his first novel, is going to New York for a reunion with his best college pals. The weekend will lead up to the wedding of God-fearing gridiron star Lance (Morris Chestnut) and angelic Mia (Monica Calhoun), who once worked on the school paper with Harper. Harper, of course, is Lance's best man. Trouble is, Harper's novel is heavily autobiographical (when it's not deeply into raunchy wish fulfillment); budding TV producer Jordan (Nia Long), another of the old gang, has procured an advance copy and passed it around. Pretty much the only people who haven't read it are Mia and Lance, and Harper would like to keep it that way; the scene in which his fictional counterpart has hot and steamy sex with good-girl Mia's thinly veiled stand-in can only cause trouble. And that's no doubt why perennial provocateur Quentin (Terrence Howard) promptly hands the tattered copy of Harper's book to the groom-to-be. And so the complications begin. Will Lance flip when he gets to the smutty part? How nasty can stuck-up Shelby (Melissa De Souza) be about the way she's portrayed? Can do-gooder Murch (Harold Perrineau) escape Shelby's social-climbing claws long enough to go to the bachelor party? Will Jordan get with Harper before his girlfriend Robin (Sanaa Lathan) arrives? How about Murch and the Audre Lord-quoting stripper (Regina Hall)? It's all pure, unadulterated fluff, a spin on THE BIG CHILL dressed up with a hugely attractive cast. And kudos to Lee for finding some NYC locations that haven't yet been done to death.