For whatever reason probably too
ignorant to properly address, there were a good number of people who were
shocked...shocked I tell you, that an urban comedy such as Think Like A Man
was such a surprise hit last year. Never mind that it's full of beautiful,
talented actors, and is funny and relatable in regards to relationships in a
way everybody can understand. It's understandable that some of these people may
have forgotten the film's spiritual and thematic predecessor, because it was
fourteen years ago in 1999's excellent ensemble hit, The Best Man, a
film full of substantial characters that seemed like real people underneath all
the theatrics. Now reunited after all this time in The Best Man Holiday,
these characters are just as funny, honest, and sexy as we remember them. It's
like they never really went away.
Writer/director Malcolm D. Lee has
jumped around from goofy satire like Undercover Brother to nostalgia pieces
like the underrated Roll Bounce, but he found just the right balance with The
Best Man, and he picks up right where he left off in the sequel. Fifteen years
have passed and the film makes up for lost time with a brisk re-introduction,
catching us up with what everybody has been up to. The best man of the previous
film, Harper (Taye Diggs), rode the wave of his success after his first book,
which was about him and his friends, but hasn't had much luck in the meantime.
With his wife Robin (Sanaa Lathan) about to have their first child, he's
freaking out over money. Pro football hopeful Lance (Morris Chestnut) is now a
future Hall of Fame running back in the NFL and is about to break the rushing
record on his final game before retirement. The neurotic Julian (Harold
Perrineau) just lost a major donor to his school due to his wife Candace
(Regina Hall) once being a stripper; and Quentin (Terrence Howard) is still
just being Quentin, living the life of a bachelor to insane fullest. 
As one might expect from a film
titled The Best Man, the dudes took center stage for the most part, but
the sequel finds Lee giving equal time to the ladies, and it pays dividends.
Jordan (Nia Long) is still a workaholic, moving to a top position at MSNBC and
dating a hunky white dude (Eddie Cibrian), which becomes a frequent topic of
discussion. The wild and crazy Shelby (Melissa De Sousa) has taken her act to
Hollywood as part of a Real Housewives of Winchester reality series, and Mia
(Monica Calhoun) has settled nicely into her role as Lance's wife, mother of
his four children. 
These are just the places
where these lifelong friends begin, but it's far from where they end, and one
of the great pleasures is seeing how they all connect to one another in
different ways. Robin still thinks Harper is a little too close for comfort to
Jordan; Lance and Harper are still harboring baggage from old secrets; while
Candace and Shelby are always on the verge of a cat fight. That's just the
faintest taste of the numerous angles playing out over the course of a
tumultuous Christmas weekend where pretty much everything under the sun
happens, both good and bad. 
For the vast majority of the film,
Lee gets the balance between broad humor and heavy drama nicely, with Terrence
Howard in particular boasting most of the best lines. His performance, which
almost HAS to have been ad-libbed it's so ridiculously over-the-top (he snaps
photos of his genitalia at one point), seems like it comes from some other, vastly different movie. But his quirkiness keeps the mood light and the tone always a little off-balance, and one truly never knows what to expect when he's around. Spirituality and faith play even bigger roles this
time, as Lance deals with a personal crisis that hits close to home. 
After a certain point, however,
right around the time the guys grace the ladies with a rousing performance of
New Edition's 'Can You Stand the Rain?’ that balance Lee was walking is thrown
totally out of whack. Suddenly, the characters are all distraught, fighting,
and crying over every word, and what had been a fun reunion with old friends
(not just for them but for the audience) becomes a bit of a drag. Even when at
its most melodramatic, these characters always feel completely authentic and
grounded in a way few ensembles can manage. And to be fair, these times of
despair don't last forever, and the film picks up steam just in time for a wild
conclusion that sees every single subplot come to a head at the same time. The
sheer amount of stuff that happens is incredible, and shouldn't be spoiled, but
it also doesn't give us much room to breathe and really take in the impact of
it all.
The
Best Man Holiday
is everything Tyler Perry wishes he could make out of his Madea franchise. It's
safe to say that The Best Man was in some way an inspiration to the industry
Perry created, but he felt that his audience needed to be spoon fed his message
under the guise of a sassy, unfunny, and marginally (or not so marginally)
offensive black stereotype. It's the only way his movies can make a buck,
right? That's why it's so refreshing to see the level of care and attention
that went in to making The Best Man Holiday everything its fans had wanted
it to be. The respect shown to the audience makes the long wait more than worth
it, and will keep them coming back for more.
