OUR FAMILY WEDDING — ★1/2 — Carlos Mencia, Forest Whitaker, America Ferrara; rated PG-13 (vulgarity, profanity, violence, sex, slurs, drugs); in general release
"Our Family Wedding" has a cast that's filled with distinctive voices and faces.
Unfortunately, its script and direction are as indistinct and generic as any film in recent memory.
If anything, it seems like we've seen this material done many times over the past few years — and done considerably better.
Also, these performers all deserve better, funnier material than this lame, occasionally offensive, multicultural comedy-drama can offer.
That includes television actors America Ferrara ("Ugly Betty") and Lance Gross ("House of Payne"), who play young lovers Lucia Ramirez and Marcus Boyd.
Lucia and Marcus are about to go overseas to participate in charitable efforts, so they're planning on a quickie wedding. And they've returned to their respective parents' Los Angeles homes to give them the good news.
However, Marcus and Lucia's plans and announcements don't go over particularly well. His radio deejay father, Brad (Forest Whitaker), and her auto shop owner father, Miguel (Carlos Mencia), already had an earlier confrontation.
Even worse, the families are insisting on a bigger wedding, which turns into a bigger issue. (The sides are insisting on African-American and Latino influences and customs, as you'd expect.)
We might be able to forgive the by-the-numbers plotting and some of the more one-note characterizations if the rest of the film didn't consist of various crudities (including jokes about male-enhancement drugs and frisky animals), and if some of the supposed comic elements didn't have such a racist tone.
Co-screenwriter/director Rick Famuyiwa also gives more time to the parents and their relationship dysfunctions than he does to the youthful romance. That's a really big mistake.
"Our Family Wedding" is rated PG-13 and features crude sexual humor (sight gags) and references (slang and other suggestive talk), scattered strong profanity (including one usage of the so-called "R-rated" curse word), mostly comic violence (slapstick, including a cake fight, some brawling, some fantasy violence and a goat-gone-amuck), a pair of brief sex scenes (mostly implied) and other sexual contact, derogatory language and slurs (based on nationality and ethnic heritage), and drug content and references (male-enhancement drugs and marijuana). Running time: 102 minutes.
e-mail: jeff@desnews.com