Big Momma's House

When you're unemployed, a week can go very slowly. Monday, it's lunch over Jerry Springer, an afternoon downloading free pornography and dinner with Judge Judy while Mrs. Filthy has to work overtime during the fabric store's inventory. Tuesday, Jerry, porno, hiding the porno pictures in a directory named "Car Parts Inventory," and then a little Mac'n'Cheese Hamburger Helper with the wife. Fuck, that shit's so good. The rest of the week was a repeat, over and over.

The week went especially slowly because all I had on my Day Planner was a date with "Big Momma's House," which I was certain would be as shitty and boring as the previews made it out to be. After a week of sitting on my ass coming up with excuses not to help with the housework, the last thing I wanted to do was pay my own God damn money to watch Martin Lawrence beat one joke harder than a horny retard beats his dick.

So, it was a complete and pleasant surprise to have my preconceptions of "Big Momma's House" smashed to bits. This is a delightful, light-on-its-feet comedy that goes way beyond the expected. It delivers a rich set of characters exploring their relationships, and features an underlying and intelligent conversation on how blacks relate to police authority. It's subversive and hilarious.

I'm pulling your fucking chain. This movie sucks filthy cornholes and it's about as clever as a ballpeen hammer through the cranium. If anything, it doesn't even live up to the comedy potential it shows early in the classic "old lady taking a stinky poo" scene.

I saw this steaming pile in a theater packed with mullet-headed men and women who had their pukey little babies and snot-nosed three-year-olds with them. The hicks on every side of me repeated every fucking line, laughed uncontrollably at the fart jokes, and had trouble keeping up with the story. If this describes you, you should rush out to see "Big Momma's House" because you are so fucking stupid you'll love it. If it doesn't, save your money for Jim Varney to rise from the grave.

Martin Lawrence is an FBI agent who is, we are told, a master of disguise. At the beginning of the flick, he dresses like an old Chinese man to infiltrate a dogfighting ring. There is absolutely no reason for his to dress as an Asian man, but it tells us how, with lots of makeup, he can look like someone else. That's the only joke that is supposed to float this bloated, rotting corpse of a flick.

Shortly, a hottie played by Nia Long, is being pursued by her former boyfriend, a killer bank robber. The FBI thinks Long was involved in one of his robberies, and Lawrence and his partner Paul Giamatti are sent to watch Long's grandmother's house in Georgia in case she shows up there.

So that the movie has a reason to exist, Long does go to her Big Momma's. However, after taking her legendary big stinky shit, Big Momma goes on a trip for some inexplicable reason that only the screenwriters understand. I will assume they understand.

Martin has to dress up like Big Momma so that Long won't slip through their fingers. He then proceeds to dress like Big Momma for the next hour, fooling Long and everyone else because they are really fucking blind or stupid. While Lawrence plays Big Momma, he gets a boner for Long, and tries to trick her into liking him whenever he is not in the fat old lady makeup.

The bad boyfriend tracks down Long. He shows up at the same time that the real Big Momma returns from her inexplicable trip. Guess what? There's a bunch of hilarious mistaken identity comedy and Lawrence and the real Big Momma eventually subdue the bad guy. Hooray! End of movie.

Not so fast, the director and writers have the balls to think we have grown to love these characters. I didn't, but they insist we watch as Long and Lawrence reconcile. See, she got mad because he had posed as the old lady. What an uptight bitch! If Mrs. Filthy got pissed at me for wearing old women's clothes, we would have split up long ago.

The screenwriters of "Big Momma's House" are either the laziest, sloppiest fucks in the world, or they're complete idiots. There is one other option, and that is that they are six years old and don't know any better. If this is the case, I understand. If it isn't, let's drag Darryl Quarles and Don Rhymer out into the public square and shoot them in the balls. They don't even bother with such simple things as character development, suspense or pacing. Instead, they introduce a bad guy at the beginning and catch him at the end. The rest is just filler to make it long enough to be a movie.

After forcing himself into the Big Momma costume, Lawrence goes through a series of skits. Each one is based on the idea first that Lawrence dressed as a fat old lady is funny, and that it's a fucking hoot to see old ladies run around in a tizzy. If that second idea is so great, why aren't more people setting fire to retirement homes?

An old fat lady delivers a baby, but doesn't know how! An old fat lady plays basketball and has 'game.' An old fat lady says dirty words. An old fat lady dances. An old fat lady is pursued by a horny old man. They only give lip service to linking these sketches into a developing story. How proud 20th Century Fox must be to let them inflict their wildly ingenious comic stylings on an unsuspecting public.

The fuckwads don't even try to plug holes in the script, and I will just mention a few. Lawrence is a master of disguise, but he is sent on a mission that requires no disguise - see, he chooses to dress up like Big Momma, that wasn't part of the plan. The bad guy gets a kid's great grandmother's name and address from the information on the kid's prescription pills. There isn't even a decent reason for Big Momma to leave her house. She picks up the phone, and next thing you know, Lawrence is playing Big Momma. All the characters come and go at the whim of the script, certainly not common sense.

Lawrence is sometimes Big Momma and sometimes himself. Not one character ever notices that Big Momma isn't around when Lawrence is. That's fucking weak, especially since everything takes place in Big Momma's house and it should seem strange if she's gone for hours at a time.

The direction by Raja Gosnell is piss poor. The story takes place in Georgia, but why? It might as well have been shot in the organ shop at the mall because hey shoot the whole fucking thing indoors, and in close-ups. It's sloppy and claustrophobic. Plus, many of the scenes are edited so sloppily it adds the only shred of suspense to the movie. I asked, "What the hell is going on?"

Martin Lawrence might have his fans, but I suspect they all have been hit on the head with hammers. The guy has one speed, always screeching and acting like he just swallowed all the crystal meth because the cops were pounding on the door. That speed is good for one sketch, and he scores a few laughs, but he sure as hell doesn't carry a movie. He doesn't have anything to keep our interest or care about. Nia Long is not a good actress, but she's even worse when she has nothing to do. Mostly she has the role of watching Lawrence/Big Momma and shaking her head. Paul Giamatti also doesn't do jack shit. I'm still confused why he is even in "Big Momma's House," except that maybe at one point it was supposed to be a black-white cop buddy movie.

It's barely two fingers, and only that because I did laugh twice. One fucking finger for the Camaro-loving audience I saw it with. Please don't go see this movie. Just go to the bathroom with a loved one and take turns shitting in front of each other. It'll be just as funny.

Job update: I didn't get the job at the Super-Save. Larry Carlson interviewed right before me and that guy's a legend. He's been pumping gas in Arvada for 14 years, so I can't begrudge him for getting the gig. However, he left the Independence Avenue Conoco, so I'm gonna go see if they need help. Keep those supportive e-mails coming.