"Guess Who" would be a better movie if it could just figure out what kind of movie it wants to be.
This remake of 1967's "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner" appears to be on the verge of turning into a full-blown romantic comedy, instead of the original film's blend of racial-divide comedy and drama. But then it turns into a buddy comedy instead.
As a result, it feels muddled. And it certainly doesn't do any of these genres as well as it should. But to be fair, it's not an unpleasant movie, just a confused, sometimes frustrating one.
In this version of the story, the roles — well, the races — of the characters are reversed. (The original starred Spencer Tracy as a man who discovered his daughter was dating a black man, played by Sidney Poitier.)
The father this time around is Percy Jones (Bernie Mac), a successful loan officer who discovers his daughter, Theresa (Zoe Saldana), is dating a white man. He's Simon Green (Ashton Kutcher), who's just quit his job for undisclosed reasons and hasn't told Theresa yet.
He's got even bigger worries, since he's meeting her parents for the first time, and it's their 25th wedding anniversary. And Percy doesn't appear to be too happy about his daughter's choice in dates. (As it turns out, Simon isn't the only one in the relationship who's been keeping secrets.)
So Percy insists the young lovers sleep in separate bedrooms (he even bunks down with Simon in the basement to prevent any hanky-panky). He also has some of his contacts look into Simon's background.
Unfortunately for Percy, even his own wife (Judith Scott) thinks he's being too hard on Simon, and the resulting argument threatens their planned anniversary celebration.
The three credited screenwriters and director Kevin Rodney Sullivan can't really decide how to attack the race issue, so they abandon that material in favor of "Meet the Parents"-style shtick instead. (There is one pretty funny gag involving radio-station programming.)
As for the stars, both Mac and Kutcher are pretty likable actors, but the way their characters are written prevents the audience from sympathizing with either one of them. The female characters come off much better, but unfortunately, this film isn't really about them.
"Guess Who" is rated PG-13 for vulgar sexual references and humor, some slapstick violence (vehicular), and scattered use of profanity and racial epithets. Running time: 105 minutes.
E-MAIL: jeff@desnews.com