A light farce with a serious "message" beneath the surface, "Strictly Business" is at its comic best when the affable stars are allowed to simply do their thing.
After all, this is really little more than a film-debut showcase for a pair of TV talents, Tommy Davidson, of the comedy-variety series "In Living Color," and Joseph C. Phillips, who, until this season, played the rigid son-in-law on "The Cosby Show."
The story has streetwise Bobby Johnson (Davidson) stuck in the mailroom of New York's biggest real-estate brokerage firm, though he's been promised a chance at the executive training program by his friend Waymon Tinsdale III (Phillips).
Waymon is a rising star, a workaholic with all the yuppie trappings, and he has the inside track to a partnership, if he's successful with his latest big real estate deal. He also has a strident girlfriend (Anne Marie Johnson) who's heavily into control. (She admits to some friends that she doesn't love Waymon, but sees him as a means to a very rich end.)
The plot has Waymon bumping into and falling head over heels for Natalie (Halle Berry), a gorgeous waitress-turned promotions director at a Harlem nightclub. But Waymon doesn't know how to meet her — until he discovers Bobby knows her.
But before Bobby agrees to fix him up, he makes a demand — that he gets in on that training program immediately. There's also a subplot about a jealous colleague attempting to undermine Waymon's success so he can steal away the partnership.
First-time screenwriters Pam Gibson and Nelson George use only the most predictable devices to push the story along, and veteran actor and TV director Kevin Hooks, here making his film-directing debut, doesn't stray from the formula. From a musical montage in a clothing store, as Waymon trades his Brooks Brothers suit for more hip attire, to the way the camera ogles Natalie, panning up in slow motion from her legs to her torso (attired in a low-cut, ultra-tight dress, of course), "Strictly Business" too often resembles a dozen other mediocre films.
The "serious" element comes in as the film momentarily stalls for a preachy speech on how black people are often their own worst enemies and should not be so judgmental of one another.
All of this is annoying in what is really just a big-screen sitcom, but there are enough genuine, natural laughs from jive-talkin' Davidson (at one point he describes Waymon's girlfriend as "Teenage Mutant Negro Chicken Legs") and uptight Phillips (a big laugh is delivered when another character says, "Here comes Sidney Poitier") to keep the audience satisfied.
And it should be noted that Johnson is also very good as Waymon's girl, but that poor Berry, who really shined in a very different role as a crack addict in Spike Lee's "Jungle Fever," is used here merely as a sex object. (Sam Jackson is also amusing as the strict mailroom boss.)
"Strictly Business" could have been much better, but the stars make it enjoyable fluff. It is rated PG-13, which seems inappropriate because there is so much sex, profanity and vulgarity. There is also some violence.