This movie is a remake of "Heaven can Wait" starring
Warren Beatty but essentially has been rewritten as an opportunity for Chris Rock to
showcase his comedian skills. Chris Rock puts much of his personality into the role so the
movie is an "in your face" type of humour that may not appeal to everyone. He
plays Lance Barton who is trying to make it as a comedian, although not very successfully,
and has desires of obtaining a coveted amateur spot at closing night at the Apollo. Due to
a timing error on the part of his guardian angel he meets an unfortunate and untimely end.
Trying to correct their mistake his guardian angel (Eugene Levy) and his boss (Chass
Palminteri) take Lance back to earth to find a suitable substitute body.
As a temporary measure Lance inhabits the
body of a podgy white middle aged billionaire who has just been bumped off by his much
younger trophy wife and her boyfriend, so they can get hold of his money. While this body
would obviously not usually appeal to Lance the fact that a girl (Regina King) he has been
eying up at the comedy club suddenly makes an appearance at the billionaire’s door
influences his decision.
The body switch leads to quite funny
situations as the wife now finds out he isn’t quite dead after all and now this once
stingy man becomes quite hip and generous in order to impress the girl, much to the
chagrin of his company board. Lance is still keen to continue his budding comedian career
and to achieve a spot at the Amateur night at the Apollo, meaning you have a young hip
black guy in a dowdy white mans body telling jokes that at times just don’t sound
quite right!
The film has some funny moments but as
mentioned above the humour is certainly not subtle! And in parts it is also not very funny
as some of the jokes fall rather flat. However fans of Chris Rock will enjoy the movie and
it is certainly still worth a night of light entertainment. |
