DVD Review 2: Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins

DVD Reviews

By Frankie Dees Jun 16, 2008, 14:49 GMT

Martin Lawrence returns to his shameless mugging for the camera with this deep-fried piece of comedy shtick that has Lawrence’s much-maligned now gone-Hollywood protagonist return back to his country Georgia home after a long absence to suffer at the comedic hands of Cedric the Entertainer, Mo’nique and Mike Epps.

Filled to the brim with fat jokes, fart jokes and slapstick so broad, it might be hard for your TV screen to contain it – the pic scores a nice collection of both comics and class a la James Earl Jones and Michael Clarke Duncan to surround Martin Lawrence with and Lawrence seems to gladly cede the limelight. Maybe it’s nice to not carry the whole of a film on your shoulders every so often.

Lawrence plays Hollywood talk-show host RJ Stevens, whose Georgia God-given name Roscoe Jenkins was condensed, who is living the good life with his ‘Survivor’-winning fiancée (Joy Bryant) who seems to regard their future union as more of Hollywood synergy, an “alliance” that will boost both of their careers. When his good-natured mom (Margaret Avery) gives him a call to try and guilt him into coming home after nine years for their 50th wedding anniversary, he ho-hums knowing that it could be a painful experience both emotionally and physically. His gruff papa (James Earl Jones in full-on Mufasa mode) makes it clear however that he has no choice. Packing up his prissy fiancée, her dog and his neglected son Jamaal (Damani Roberts), his heads home and we quickly find out why it took so long for Roscoe to make a return trip. Mostly father-son issues, Roscoe is still smarting from his dad’s preferential treatment to his cousin Clyde (Cedric the Entertainer), whose parents had died when he was a kid and moved in with them. Competitive at everything, Clyde soundly whooped Roscoe at everything back in the day from checkers to scoring the beauty queen.The antagonism with Clyde, now a suave car-dealership owner, who shows up with Lucinda (Nicole Ari Parker) the aforementioned beauty queen in question, makes up most of the narrative but also surrounding Roscoe is the rest of his unruly family clan that includes his obnoxious, diva sister Betty (Mo’Nique) who never misses a chance to take a swipe at him, his family man sheriff brother Otis (Michael Clarke Duncan) and his one in every family troublemaker Reggie (Mike Epps) who shows up with a daft white girl.His child-hood crush on Lucinda is plainly still in full-effect which true to form doesn’t sit too well with both Clyde and Bianca – a plot device that leads to the inevitable showdown between Clyde and Roscoe.

Director Malcolm D. Lee (‘Undercover Brother’) clearly values the amalgam of performers he gathered here over plot and generally just allows the perfs to do their own respective thing and they all get a nice amount of screen time. The result is mostly miss than hit but there are some laughs to be had and the ensemble cast seems to enjoy literally scrapping over the camera. The film is presented in 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen and special features include an ‘Alternate Opening’, ‘Deleted and Extended Scenes’, some expectedly funny ‘Outtakes’, featurettes’ ‘Bringing the Family Together’, ‘On Location: Getting Down and Dirty’ and ‘Going Home’, ‘Joe “We’re Family” Music Video’ and a feature length audio commentary with director Malcolm D. Lee. The pratfalls and visual gags admittedly get tiresome and if this sort of brash humor hasn’t been your cup of tea in the past then this flick certainly won’t change your mind but I actually found it less trite than most of Tyler Perry’s offerings – the flick works really hard at trying to make you laugh and I’ll give it some points for the sheer effort on display. And also a point for showing that dogs don’t always have to ‘do it’ in the position they created – a visual gag that may prove haunting.

Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins is now available at Amazon. It is available for pre-order at AmazonUK for a Sept. 22nd. Visit the DVD database for more information.