WELCOME HOME ROSCOE JENKINS Universal Pictures/ Spyglass Entertainment
Reviewed for CompuServe by Harvey Karten
Grade: C
Directed by: Malcolm D. Lee
Written By: Malcolm D. Lee
Cast: Martin Lawrence, Louis C.K. Nicole Ari Parker, Cedric the Entertainer, Michael Clarke Duncan, Mike Epps, James Earl Jones, Joy Bryant, Mo’nique Imes, Affion Crockett, Guss Hoffman, Liz Mikel, Damani Roberts
Screened at: AMC 84th St., NYC, 2/5/08
Opens: February 8, 2008 Thomas Wolfe said “You can’t go home again,” which is the title of his most famous book, about one George Webber who had written a successful novel about his family and hometown. When he returns to that town, he is shaken by the force of outrage and hatred that greets him. Family and life-long friends feel naked and exposed by what they have seen in his books, and their fury drives him from his home. George Webber and Roscoe Jenkins aka Dr. RJ Stevens (Martin Lawrence) have at least something in common. They have split from their roots, determined never to return to the past. But like Webber, who had come full certain in returning to America after a whirlwind trip to Europe to find new love there, television host RJ. Stevens goes back to his home town in Georgia for his parents’ fiftieth anniversary hoping to find there what he could not summon up as a child. If “Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins” sounds sentimental, it is—to an extent. For the most part, though, this latest vehicle for comedian Martin Lawrence is filled with run-of-the-mill slapstick, its writer-director Malcolm D. Lee milking the audience for laughs by creating the title character’s relatives as flawed people. Some are obese and loud, like Betty (Mo’nique Imes); another, Roscoe’s dad, Papa Jenkins (James Earl Jones), no stranger to using his belt to punish young Roscoe. Roscoe’s cousin, Clyde (Cedric the Entertainment, Guss Hoffman as a young lad) has a history of defeating Roscoe in every competition, whether checkers, chess or track, even stealing his would-be girlfriend, prom queen Lucinda (Nicole Ari Parker). When Roscoe is invited to share in the fiftieth anniversary celebration in Georgia of his parents, Papa Jenkins and Mamma Jenkins (Margaret Avery), he is understandably reluctant, preferring to remain in L.A. as a celebrity with his TV show. He is persuaded by his dad and his son Jamaal (Damani Roberts), however, flying first-class with his son his vegan fiancé Bianca (Joy Bryant) and her mousy white dog. Malcolm D. Lee’s movie is a situation comedy, the verbal humor as gross as some of the characters. Though one wonders how they could be in the same family, the county sheriff, Otis (Michael Clarke Duncan) looks like a man addicted to steroids while his wiry cousin, Reggie (Mike Epps), serves as family motor-mouth. Of the principal performers, only Roscoe’s mom plays a straight role: one marvels that she can put up with the uninspired chaos surrounding her. The standard fiancé-as-odd-woman-out is trotted up, as Bianca, playing a princess role as a woman who loves only herself and her figure, spits out the heavily sugared lemonade offered to her, calling the ice-filled glass “instant diabetes.” When Roscoe, beginning to tire of his fiancé’s self-adulation, lays eyes upon his childhood crush, Lucinda, he enters the competition of his life, determined to wrest her from his cousin. Watching Roscoe, a celebrity in L.A., being treated like the schlub once again, we are fairly certain that he had made a mistake in attending the anniversary celeb. Not only is he berated verbally: he is punched by his musclebound brother, Otis, in return for a simple diss, belted around by Betty, humiliated on the softball field, shaken up knock-down, drag-out physical violence with his cousin. The comedy is not to be taken seriously, thereby making a reconciliation between Roscoe and family inevitable, however unlikely the odds. No doubt the pic will find an audience, folks who never tire of sitcom treatment of family reunions, but essentially the film does not earn the right to challenge Thomas Wolfe’s contention that you can’t go home again. Rated PG-13. 114 min. © 2008 Member, NY Film Critics Online | 
