Papa and Mamma Jenkins seem like dignified, lovely people, a couple about to mark 50 years of marriage. They are, after all, played by James Earl Jones and Margaret Avery.
So how did they raise three boys (two sons and an orphaned nephew) and a girl who, as adults, try to beat the bejesus out of each other? During a weekend celebrating their golden anniversary, no less.
Watching Roscoe Jenkins (Martin Lawrence) punch his sister, Betty (Mo'Nique), before she pummels him is writer-director Malcolm D. Lee's idea of comedy in "Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins."
If that weren't enough, and it's not, Roscoe and his cousin, Clyde (Cedric the Entertainer), roll around on the floor as they tussle and crash into furniture, breaking tables and wreaking havoc in the kitchen. And Roscoe's older brother, Otis (Michael Clarke Duncan), clocks him, too.
- Starring: Martin Lawrence, Joy Bryant, Cedric the Entertainer, James Earl Jones.
- Rating: PG-13 for crude and sexual content, language and some drug references.
- Web site: welcomehomeroscoejenkins.com
"Welcome Home" stars Lawrence as a successful talk-show host -- Montel Williams meets Jerry Springer -- who is engaged to a "Survivor" winner named Bianca (Joy Bryant) who never met an opponent she didn't want to crush.
They and Roscoe's 10-year-old son head to Georgia for his parents' anniversary celebration. The trip reopens old wounds and rivalries and brings Roscoe face to face with his school-boy crush, the sweet Lucinda (Nicole Ari Parker, playing a real person and not a caricature).
As in many family reunion movies, "Roscoe Jenkins" is built around a series of escalating comic confrontations, with some painful revelations and life lessons tossed in. Among them: It's destructive to nurse decades-old grudges, to take competition to a ridiculous level, to allow other people to raise your children and to turn your back on family.
It's the supporting players -- Mo'Nique and, as cousin Reggie, Mike Epps -- who get the biggest laughs. Mo'Nique is bawdy and blunt, while Epps drops in comic riffs, impersonating Forest Whitaker at one point, that have little to do with the movie but are still funny.
"Roscoe Jenkins" is the anti-"This Christmas," a dramedy which staged a family reunion with a largely African-American cast without fist fights, the N-word, animal couplings and other foolishness.
Still, a preview audience roared at some of the over-the-top stunts and raucous rumbles delivered by Lee. He made his directorial debut with the commercial and critical hit "The Best Man" starring Taye Diggs as a novelist who borrows from his friends' lives, and later directed "Undercover Brother" and "Roll Bounce."
Lee knows how to assemble a name cast and let them merrily mix it up, but at nearly two hours, "Roscoe Jenkins" is too long, its "Survivor" thread gets thinner and more dated as the movie progresses and it often goes for the easy, expected laugh.
See Lawrence sitting in an airplane in a white suit with a glass of beet juice in his hand -- is that an option, even in first class? -- and you can expect a spill.
And you get one. Plus a whole lotta mess.
First Published: February 8, 2008, 10:00 a.m.