Reviewer's Bias*
Loves:
Likes: Bernie Mac
Dislikes: Pointless remakes, Ashton Kutcher films
Hates: Race-based comedy

The Movie
The producers of Guess Who would have been better off naming it Ebony & Ivory or Big Black Daddy or just about anything else, because connecting it in any way to the classic race-relations film Guess Who's Coming to Dinner was to doom the movie to comparisons it didn't need and couldn't stand up to. You don't put Tara Reid in a movie about publishing and call it Kane. You're just inviting trouble, especially when the only real similarity between the two films is the set-up. Instead of a white girl bringing a black guy home to meet her family, the races are reversed, as Theresa (Zoe Saldana, Pirates of the Caribbean), brings Simon (Kutcher) home to meet her family. After that, this movie bears little resemblance to the Stanley Cramer film.

So, in fairness to this film, I will be reviewing Big Black Daddy instead. In Big Black Daddy, Simon has to curry favor with Percy (Bernie Mac), his girlfriend's father, after he is surprised to find out that Simon isn't the "brother" he expected. Percy is a tough, traditional man who loves his daughters and doesn't trust any man with them, going so far as to pull a credit report on him. Meanwhile, Simon's got bigger problems than Percy, but because of them, he has to lie to his host.

What follows is partially a Meet the Parents clone, as Simon and Percy dance a tango (figuratively and literally) and lies compound on both their parts. If you've seen Parents, you know how this story will go. The new parts of the film will come from the other parts of the movie, such as the racial aspects of the film. Perhaps I wasn't paying attention, but the film seems to manage to keep a plot point concealed well enough that it actually was a bit of a surprise when it was revealed.

The film does get plenty of mileage out of the racial angle, playing Simon as the sap in most cases. A scene at dinner in which Percy keeps feeding Simon with rope that he naively hangs himself is simply effective in showing how race relations are often a matter of walking a fine line. And anytime Simon tries to talk himself out of a problem, he ends up deeper into another, again showing how sensitive such matters are. This film isn't a symposium on racial harmony, but when dealing with the interracial buddy comedy concept, it's better to see a film recognize exactly why these things are interesting to people, instead of acting like a modern-day minstrel show.

Bernie Mac is his usual funny self, basically playing an extension of his character on his television show, which is basically...him. It makes sense that he's so good at it. Kutcher also seems to be playing himself, or at least the version of himself that he's crafted on film and television. He's goofy enough that his pratfalls don't seem out of character, yet he can pull it together enough to be serious for a scene or two. But at that point, he's been goofy too long to take these serious moments seriously.

Director Kevin Rodney Sullivan (Barbershop 2, How Stella Got Her Groove Back) didn't get overly complicated with the look of the film, creating a pretty standard romantic comedy, with touches of style and a solid handle on the actors. There aren't any massive slapstick set pieces, ala Parents, though there is a go-cart race that looks very nice, with some good camera work. The film aims to be sweeter and more personal, but that's not to say that there aren't some good laughs to be had, as Kutcher and Mac play off each other well, especially in bed. Yes...in bed.

The DVD
Guess Who is presented as a one-DVD release, packaged in a standard keepcase. The disc features an anamorphic widescreen animated main menu, with animated transitions. Options include play, scene selections, special features, languages and previews. English and French 5.1 soundtracks are available, along with English, French and Spanish subtitles, and English closed captioning. The scene-selection menus feature still previews and titles for each chapter.

The Quality
The anamorphic widescreen video, presented in the OAR of 1.85:1, looks good, but is hardly at the level it should be for a film this recent. The color, which leans toward a dark palette, is appropriate, and the black levels are deep. Unfortunately, the image is not exactly crisp, and isn't loaded with fine detail. There's also the matter of some stray noise, rare damage and some digital artifacts in spots. It's not the worst transfer, but it should look better than this.

Aurally, the mix is straight-forward comedy, with a heavy central focus in the soundfield, mainly to put across the dialogue, which is presented clearly. Occasionally, the music and some light atmospheric sounds spread to the surrounds to give the field more depth, but the most work your receiver will get is during the go-cart scene, where directional effects and nice separation among the speakers make for a nice presentation.

The Extras
Considering the film raked in almost doubled its budget at the box office, a decent DVD was to be expected. Sony almost delivered, with a handful of extras.

First up is a screen-specific audio commentary by Sullivan, who does a good job behind the mic. The director starts the track off in gladhandling style, spreading praise around liberally to everyone he can think of. But once he finishes lauding his cast and crew, he settles down into a well-delivered technical track, discussing how the film was put together. This may not be the kind of film with an audience that would appreciate such a commentary, but it's an appreciated extra.

Sullivan provides more optional commentary for seven deleted scenes, which were all smartly cut, as they don't add much to the film. There's also a four-minute gag reel that includes quite a bit of bleeped swearing from Saldana and Kutcher and a couple of laughs. Especially funny is an ad-libbing Bernie Mac. This is worth sitting through to see the slow-motion tackling scene between him and Kutcher.

Not worth the time, at over 20 minutes, is "Love is the Melody: The Making of Guess Who." An extremely fluffy behind-the-scenes piece, this featurette reveals almost the entire movie, from scene one to the final fade, as just about every major scene is shown. It also commits the deadly sin of taking a comedic film unbelievably too seriously, from the grandiose statements of Kutcher to the use of the film's score to underline just how important this movie is.

Wrapping things up is a massive batch of 12 trailers, including a couple of winners, such as the terrific-sounding Dolby 5.1 Rent preview. Unfortunately, Guess Who's trailer is among the missing.

The Bottom Line
Surprisingly, considering the very subject matter of race, this is basically an inoffensive film. It's weightless and somewhat meaningless, aside from some bits of social commentary, but that just serves to make its 105 minutes fly by, with laughs, mostly of the Bernie Mac variety, punctuating a steadily watchable movie that has few dead spots. The DVD has decent video and pretty good audio quality, with a modicum of extras, but in this case, it's the movie that counts. For this DVD's sake, the movie is pretty rewatchable, making it easy enough to recommend.

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*The Reviewer's Bias section is an attempt to help readers use the review to its best effect. By knowing where the reviewer's biases lie on the film's subject matter, one can read the review with the right mindset.