An old circle of college friends meet again after fifteen years and find themselves re-embroiled in forgotten conflicts and still-smoldering romances. If you were fortunate enough to have seen "The Best Man" 15 years ago, then you will want to catch up with the appealing cast of characters from that breakout movie. Director Malcolm Lee has assembled the original cast, with stars Monica Calhoun, Morris Chestnut, Melissa De Sousa, Taye Diggs, Regina Hall, Terrence Howard, Sanaa Lathan, Nia Long, Harold Perrinea and Eddie Cibrian . They've become: the successful football player and his chef wife; the writer and his newly pregnant wife; the high powered executive and her boyfriend; the confirmed bachelor; the unattached single woman starring in a reality TV show.
Here's what the critics are saying:
The strength in Lee's films is never in the bombast or its blaxploitation indulgences but in quiet conversations. When the hyper-sexualized showboating and the explosive temper tantrums fade back, reality in the form of real human relationships slip in. The writer-director creates complex interconnections among each of the friends, but the central one remains the Lance-Harper dynamic. Betsy Sharkey, LA Times
The film does feel overlong and the tone is occasionally wobbly. But Lee keeps the pace generally steady, mixing comedy and melodrama in even amounts. Most of all, it’s a pleasure to see each of the actors enthusiastically returning to the roles that helped kickstart their careers. The movie ends with a setup for another sequel, which will undoubtedly be embraced by fans. Let’s just hope we don’t have to wait another 14 years to see it. Elizabeth Weitzman, New York Daily News
There are some heartrending moments. But mostly the last half of the film is boilerplate tearjerker, with scenes you've seen over and over in other, better movies, and with dialogue that's occasionally cringe-inducing. The last half hour is a complete mess, but a weird experience, too, in even after we give up on the movie, we don't give up on the characters. It's as if the story's collapse isn't just our misfortune as spectators, but theirs, too. Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle
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Ann Hornaday, the Washington Post
Most notably, the central relationship between Harper and Lance is sensitively sketched, delineating the complicated ways that adult male friendships can seesaw between resentment and vulnerability, and Harper’s increasing desperation to keep up appearances in the face of financial hardship strikes a painfully realistic chord. Yet Lee surrounds this solid foundation with far too many contrived subplots for it to resonate as deeply as it should. His affection for these characters is obvious, and while he’s nothing if not democratic in his allocation of redemptive arcs to each and every actor onscreen, a good deal of clear-eyed pruning would have done a world of good. Andrew Barker, Variety
"The Best Man Holiday" is rated R and runs 123 minutes.
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