Hood Reviews: Just Wright

I know my typing skills contradict the title of Hood Reviews, but fuck y'all. Just 'cause you from the hood don't mean you gotta be ig'nant and can't be articulate. With that said...

!!! SPOILER ALERT !!! I TELL WHAT HAPPENS IN THE MOVIE !!! IF YOU AIN'T SEEN, BUT PLAN ON SEEING IT IT, WHY DID YOU READ ANYTHING AFTER "SPOILER ALERT"? !!!

Aight, so, I know it's been a long time, but hey, who needs details? I'm lazy.
Anyhoo, I got the chance to check out the new Common and Queen Latifah movie, Just Wright like, 10 minutes ago, and to keep it short and simple, it "was like bad sex with great foreplay". Shouts to Phoenix Andre Clouden for the quote.
Yeah, I post links to my Facebook friends, so what? Back to the movie. What I mean with the bad sex, great foreplay quote is that the commercials for this movie REALLY made me wanna see it. Then when I actually saw it via one of the finest bootlegs I've ever laid my eyes on (holla at the man in front of the Wal-Mart on North Ave.) the quality of the bootleg impressed me more than the actual movie.
As I watched, I kept feeling like I had seen and/or heard the story of the damsel in distress (Leslie Wright, played by Queen Latifah), who gets her Prince Charming (Scott McKnight, played by Common), despite her evil step-sisters (just one in this case, Morgan Alexander, played by Paula Patton). Oh yeah, I have! In nearly every fairy tale ever written! This movie merely substitutes the pumpkin carriage, the glass slipper, and the dance with the Prince at the ball for an old Mustang with a dented door, a "fixer-upper" of a house, and a superstar basketball player.
From the perspective of an avid basketball fan, I don't even know where to begin with the flaws this movie has. First of all, McKnight plays for the New Jersey Nets, who miraculously advance to the playoffs without their star player, though he manages to come back just in time to push them to the NBA Finals. That scenario is laughable, seeing as how the Nets are, literally, THE worst team in basketball (they finished with 12 wins and 70 losses this past season), but I won't hold the movie at fault for that since you can't predict the team about which you're about to film a movie losing 70 games as the movie premiers.
But, why did the team have to fare without their star player, you ask? Easy. He tore his PCL while attempting a spin move in the All-Star Game. For those who don't know, a PCL is a ligament in your knee, and while torn knee ligaments are somewhat commonplace in professional sports, they RARELY happen without force being delivered to the knee. That's almost as unbelievable as tearing your ACL coming down from a dunk. I'm referring to Love & Basketball, when that happened to Omar Epps, not the actual injury occurring to NBA player Shaun Livingston; THAT was genuinely disgusting.
Anyhow, there are a lot more basketball movie no-nos this movie committed, but I won't get too deeply into that. The acting job from Common is what one should expect from a rap star as opposed to an actual actor. Take that as you will. Hey, Queen Latifah got famous through rapping too, right? Take that as you will as well. Paula Patton does a great job as a gold-digging skeeza who successfully plots to capture Scott and pretend to genuinely love him to better herself, leaves as soon as he gets injured and is at risk of being cut from the Nets (as if that's a punishment), yet, comes back around after he's rejuvenated by Leslie, but to no avail. My only questions are, what is she doing during the scenes when Leslie and Scott get all lovey-dovey? And she obviously gets her comeuppance and realizes that being a gold-digging skeeza ain't all it's cracked up to be, but WHEN? Neither of those points are touched on in the film, and it left me disappointed. I'd really like to know what possesses skeezas to skeez, and what inspires them to walk away from the skeeza game altogether, but hey, that's just me.
The movie had a good message, though. It inspires one to use their heart and not their eyes when searching for a significant other, and tells all the young ballers with hoop dreams that if you spot a beautiful woman who goes outta her way to make it seem like she doesn't wanna date you for the money, she's probably a gold-digging skeeza lying through her teeth. But if you meet a woman who only offers inner beauty to most (I personally think Queen Latifah is beautiful physically as well), yet you can have a good time and have a genuine connection with her, she's probably a keeper. I agree with the point of the movie, personally, but that's a different blog for a different day.
In closing, if you're a fan of sweet and sappy love stories, you'd like to seen a modern update of the classic Cinderella story, or you're like me and just tend to love movies that are poorly received (ay, Kazaam is my shit! Fuck y'all, don't judge me), you should see this film at one point in time. If you watch movies based solely on critical reviews, go fly a kite, or whatever it is you people do.
~Trufe