Brown Sugar

What's the Plot?

Dre (Taye Diggs) and Sidney (Sanaa Lathan) have been the best of friends since childhood. Both became firm friends when they witnessed their first rap freestyle battle in the playgrounds of New York and there and then, both fell in love with hip-hop. Over 15 years have passed since that day and both are still heavily involved in music. Sidney is a revered music critic who has now moved back to New York from L.A. to become the editor of XXL - a hip-hop magazine. Dre is a music executive for a record label but is becoming increasing disillusioned with the acts that the company is signing up. When the two meet up, Dre informs Sidney that he's getting married to Reese (Nicole Ari Parker), despite only knowing her a few short months. Slightly put out by this news, Sidney hides her feelings until, on the evening of his bachelor party, Dre and Sidney find themselves kissing passionately. Pretending that it never happened, Dre gets married, even with Sidney's cousin, Francine's (Queen Latifah), whispered objections throughout the ceremony. It's not until Sidney starts dating again that Dre begins to realise that he too has feelings for the girl he's known all his life and maybe it's not just the love of hip-hop that they share together...

The Review

So, it's comparison time again. If you were to take Julia Robert's My Best Friend's Wedding, add a decidedly cooler-than-cool affiliation with hip-hop music and anyone who's anyone from that genre ( Doug E. Fresh, De La Soul, Big Daddy Kane, Talib Kweli ), then make the ending a typical sugar-coated one like all Hollywood rom-com's, except for the more realistic My Best Friend's Wedding and you have Brown Sugar. Sometimes with films, the outcome is predictable within the first few minutes, so it's the actual journey that makes it worthwhile watching.

That would mean that things like great chemistry, snappy dialogue and hilarious situations would have to be present to keep the viewer enthralled until the obvious ending came along. Sadly, there isn't enough of these to make the audience's time and effort justifiable. Brown Sugar does have it's moments of fun, but these are too thin on the ground to rise this film above the multitude of others that hit the multiplexes regularly. Dre dragging Sidney along to a restaurant to confront his cheating wife is a perfect cringe-inducing scene, especially when the other man finds out that the woman he's seeing is married, and not as he thought, single.

The best joke throughout the movie has to be "The Hip-Hop Dalmations." A musically-challenged version of Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels Dumb And Dumber, these two wannabe's get to do a un-PC version of "The Girl Is Mine" - "The Ho Is Mine" - which, especially when you see them in the recording studio, is probably worth the admission price alone! With such a stunning performance - and a Oscar nomination no less - for "Chicago", you may also wonder why Queen Latifah is in such an average flick, but since she lights up the screen whenever she appears, you forget that and just thank your lucky stars that she got the part. Brown Sugar is a poor rom-com that cannot stand up to the classics or the recent entries to the genre that have made the grade. Save it for video.

STEVE'S SCORE