Has it been a great year for Disney or what? While Johnny Depp's Pirates and Pixar's Nemo are still burning up the charts, Disney started off the year with the suprise comedy hit
Bringing Down the House.
Queen Latifah and Steve Martin pair up for one of the oddest couples we have seen in recent memory. Martin stars as Peter, a powerful tax attorney who meets Charlene (Queen Latifah) online under somewhat false pretenses. Charlene needs an attorney to help clear her name, and Peter just wants to find a date. See Peter's success came at a great cost as his wife divorced him because of his lack of time to his children and her.
The movie's hillarity ensues when Latifah shows up in Peter's uppity neighborhood and uses a form of blackmail to get Peter to help her. Like any Disney movie the tables turn and it is ultimately Peter whom benefits the most from this most unlikely of relationships.
The movie has a feel good ending and uses the lingo and culture of the hiphop community against the backdrop of old school money. Peter's big client is the heiress of a coffee dynasty and has very unpolitically correct manners. Martin shows his ability to merge his family minded attitude of movies like Father of the Bride with his culture bending quirkiness of The Jerk
Queen Latifah likewise shows she has the right kind of comic timing that is sometimes hard to pull off, just ask Will Smith in his early days. Plus we can't forget Eugene Levy who seems to always be the perfect supporting actor these days in comedies. In all Bringing Down the House seems to be quite worthy of its box office success.
The Disc:
Buena Vista Home Entertainment has put together a very fine transfer which preserves the original theatrical aspect ratio of 2.35:1 in an anamorphic presentation. The movie is full of vibrant color with non-existent artifacting. I was very impressed with the presentation of the movie.
As for the sounds in the film, its Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack is well done for a comedy. As with most films in this genre there is little to hear from the full surround spectrum. However the few moments of music that penetrate the audience is well defined and clear.
Extras on the disc are plentiful and include the hillarious Godfather of Hip-Hop, which has Eugene Levy as the man behind the most successful members of the community. Next up is screen-specific audio commentary by director Adam Shankman and screenwriter Jason Filardi.
The commentary here is nicely separated with each man having one side of the speaker, but unfortunately their dialog is somewhat boring.
Rounding out the goodies are seven deleted scenes, none of which really needed to be in the film, a 16 minute documentary Breaking Down Bringing Down the House which is a bit on the long side, and finally Queen Latifah's music video for "Better than the Rest."
bottom line:
Not the best comedy ever but certainly one worthy of your time. Bringing Down the House ended nicely but with the kind of box office take it had I suspect a sequel in the future.
4 out of 5
By - Brian Gray
