Stereotypes bring down tone

Bringing Down the HouseDirected by Adam ShankmanGeneral release

Victoria MacCallum

This film did huge business in the US, pushing Steve Martin firmly back on top of the Hollywood pile and establishing rap music star Queen Latifah as a presence to be reckoned with at the box office.

Sad to report then, that 'Bringing Down the House' is a lazily plotted, ambiguously racist film trading on a weak diet of well-worn stereotypes.

Steve Martin plays uptight white corporate lawyer Peter Sanderson, who enjoys an on-line flirtation with - he thinks - a petite WASP lawyer he meets in a legal chatroom.

The film should serve as a warning to users of such Web sites, as Martin's virtual paramour turns out to be Charlene Morton (Queen Latifah): loud, large, black and on the run from a Los Angeles prison.

Despite his best attempts to rid himself of her, Charlene invades every area of his sophisticated life, refusing to leave until he helps her overturn her conviction for armed robbery.

Conveniently ignoring the fact that corporate lawyers do not tend to have much experience in armed robbery cases, our hero manages to save the day, and - guess what? - become a better person during the process.

The usual parade of stiffly suited lawyers is rolled out, with the audience expected to believe that a lawyer's private life - particularly the fact that he is thought to be dating a black woman - could be enough to get him the sack.

One of the firm's clients is played by doughty thespian royalty Joan Plowright, whose otherwise inexplicable presence in this film must surely be a sign that she has bills to pay.

The idea of uptight white guys being taught to chill out, get down and hang loose by ghetto-fabulous black cats has been done to death, and all this film contributes is a rather unpleasant racist spin.

The black characters are all presented as work-shy, criminally inclined drug users, and the white folk come out with references to slavery and phrases such as 'I thought I heard negro being spoken in your house?' The idea may be to poke fun at the prejudices of upper-class white Americans, but the film is neither smart nor sharp enough to do that, and only succeeds in leaving a nasty taste in the mouth.