Think Like a Man Review
I honestly liked it, and for the life of me can’t figure out why.
This film was a huge surprise to me. According the the trailers (which I watched over and over again) it looked like every movie I should hate on every level: good looking late 20-somethings dating and screwing each other while living in the lap of luxury and enjoying the finer things in life while I struggle to buy something more than Top Ramen. It also had the appearance of following in the pattern set in Valentine’s Day and my fourth worst film of 2011, New Years Eve in that it is an assemblage cast with multiple interweaving multiple story lines crossing into each other. However, while New Years Eve enjoyed all the success of a barbed wire jock strap, somehow this movie does it right and manages to keep the audience engaged and into the story.
I think a big part of it is in this film the talented cast of actors all put their heart into the roles, ending up with a great and believable performance from all of them (with one exception, maybe). That, combined with excellent dialog and very strong chemistry, both romantic and platonic, made up for some of the weaknesses around the script.
I do have two major issues with this film and like most of my problems, they are personal. First of all seeing as I have been riding a dating rejection streak is approaching presidential term length (two term, that is) seeing all these hot young people date and for the most part succeed in finding love was like multiple daggers made of frozen nitrogen stuck into my chest. The fact that there wasn’t a woman in this film I couldn’t fall in love with was the twist on the handle.
The other issue was the portrayal of Los Angeles as the most romantic city in the world or something. I have tried dating in LA and from a romance perspective you will not find a more wretched wasteland of shallowness, ego, and self image destruction short of the fourth level of hell. If any of you readers are women living in LA I apologize if this offends you (I’m sure you are the exception to this generization) but the girls of Los Angeles are the most horrid humans to date in the known universe. 
I would literally rather kiss a wookie. (I’d Rather Kiss a Wookie image courtesy of the Star Wars T Shirts. Also, cute but hirsute women don’t be afraid to contact me).
Anyway, the movie. It is the story of 4 men and the women who have to date them. They are all friends and all take on aspects of the worst stereotypes of bad male partners: the non-committer, the player, the mammas boy, and the unemployed loser. For the record they are played by Michael Ealy (Seven Pounds, Underworld Awakenings), Jerry Ferrara (Entourage, Brooklyn Rules) Terrence Jenkins (Burlesque), and Romany Malco (Weeds, the 40 Year Old Virgin, Blades of Glory). They are joined by comic relief and recently divorced Kevin Hart (Soul Plane, Fool’s Gold, Along Came Polly). They are either involved with or meet and start dating four women who are each respectively sick of these types of guys. They are Meagan Good (Brick, Stomp the Yard, Eve’s Bayoo), Regina Hall (Scary Movie 4, Scary Movie, Law Abiding Citizen), Taraji P. Henson (the Curious Case of Benjamin Button, the Karate Kid, Date Night), and Gabrielle Union (Bad Boys II, 10 Things I Hate About You. Bring it On) and are to a woman very easy on the eyes.
The four women seem destined to keep on moving in the same direction they always have in their relationships until they come across a date advice book by Steve Harvey. I don’t know what he did to become a dating expert but since I first started this blog by giving out dating advice who am I to judge? (if you want to laugh here is the link to Part 1 of 19 posts on Online Dating I did. Kind of bitter, but some of the funniest stuff I have written IMHO) The four women buy his book and learn how to deal with men. Steve’s advice seems to be summed up as “lower your standards and then browbeat the hell out of your man until he morphs into something you can stomach”. I’m not saying I disagree with him.
Of course, the men find out about the book and start using the info back at the women. Things go to hell all around. Plans go astray. Dating chaos ensues.
The stars. I was really impressed by the cast and their performances for the most part. Two stars. Great dialog. One star. The characters all had really good, solid chemistry that worked. One star. All the women were pretty. One star. The multiple story lines not only managed to avoid tripping each other up, but actually enhanced each other. One star. I enjoyed it a lot more than I expected to. One star. Total: seven stars.
The black holes. The Kevin Hart character, while useful as a comic relief, was the one character that felt fake. I don’t think this is on Kevin so much as it is on the writer. One black hole. Sappy, predictable endings. One black hole. I don’t know if was my own feelings about dating, Los Angeles, or what but something about the film kind of infuriated me. Also we ended up looking at a lot of bare man chest. One black hole. Total: three black holes.
Four stars total, a great score for a romance film. Should you see it? Not really if you are a single man. Date movie? Hell yes. Interesting enough to keep you engaged while fulfilling every dream your date has ever had. However, I think this will work even better on a TV in front of a couch in a couple months, if you know what I mean.
I’ve kind of hit a streak of either decent or good movies. While that is a plus for me personally I know that this translates into kind of boring reviews. I can only hope something coming out soon sucks the proverbial teat, but honestly it looks like a good lineup. The best two cantidated for suckage are probably the Five-Year Engagement and Safe, but we’ll see. This weekend I should see both of those as well as Pirates and the Raven. Busy weekend. Follow me on Twitter @Nerdkungfu or email me with questions or suggestions to [email protected]. Feel free to post any comments on this movie here. Thanks for reading. Have a good weekend.
Dave
