I Think I Love My Wife? I Know I Hate This Film!!

Last evening I picked up a few films from my local rental facitiltiy and one of those films happened to be titled "I Think I Love My Wife". I find myself to be quite an open minded soul and I can usually find some form of interest in almost all things I do. Therefore, knowing almost nothing about this film before I viewed it did very little to discourage me from bringing it home. I placed the film into the dvd player and pressed that triangular shaped button that most always means "play", and so began my decent into the 7th circle of cinematic hell. In this particular case, the devil came in the form of writer, director, and star Chris Rock.

For those of you who have not yet been enlightened as to what this film entails, I will give a brief synopsis. Richard Cooper (Chris Rock) is a man who seemingly has it all. He is married to a lovely and beautiful woman named Brenda (Gina Torres), and together they have 2 beautiful children. To the outside eye all seems quite well, but Richard finds himself bored to tears with the inane, stale routine that his life has fallen into. It seems each woman he sees while traveling about to and from work becomes more fodder for his fantasies. Lo and behold, an amazingly gorgeous woman from his past named Nikki Tru (Kerry Washington) happens to be in town and she "randomly" looks him up and ends up stopping by his office. Predictability abounds and as you can guess an odd sort of flirtacious "relationship" is struck up between Richard and Nikki. Richard is forced to re-examine his own lifes path and do a bit of soul searching in order to find out where exactly he belongs in this world. Supporting roles are played by Steve Buscemi and Edward Herrman (these two must have owed Chris Rock one hell of a favor) as Richards business partner and boss respectively.

Saying that it was a terrific idea for Chris Rock to make this film is tantamount to suggesting that Rocky Balboa should have tried ballet dancing instead of boxing. Some things are just...............not right. This film is billed as a comedy but the comedic value is quite lost on me. For example, Chris Rocks character Richard Cooper and his wife in the film are out shopping on some Saturday afternoon and they just happen to run into his "old friend" Nikki Tru. Upon noticing the pair of panties (a comfortable, albeit quite unappealing to look at pair of "sensible" undergarments) that Richards wife is holding, Nikki asks "Oh, is that from the heavenly collection?" to which Chris Rock replies "No, thats actually from the Latifah collection." Get it? Queen Latifah is a bit of a larger lady and those panties were large too! See the jokes? Get it?!!! Chris Rocks got jokes! Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha..................NO! Another attempt at a humorous situation left me with little more than a queasy feeling in the pit of my stomach and fuel for a few weeks worth of horrid nightmares. In an attempt to give his wife a night to remember, Richard Cooper takes a Viagra pill from his co-worker and married playboy George (Steve Buscemi). After a romantic evening out, Richard shuffles the babysitter out the door and peeks in on his children while his wife heads to the bedroom. He pops the little blue pill and prepares for some marital relations only to find his wife passed out asleep. In a comedic twist that fell flatter than a dime on a railroad track, 4 hours after taking the pill, an ambulace barrels it's way toward the Cooper residence to find Richard with a severe case of priapism (look it up).

Several things contribute to this films demise. In my opinion, it is mostly boring and painfully predictable. One odd thing is that the film spans over quite a long period of time (we are shown scenes of a Christmas and then later the following Halloween), yet the children never age? The acting is bland at best and as i previously mentioned, I just did not feel the need to laugh or even smile at anything contained in this movie. Even though I am a smoker myself, the constant cigarette smoking and the odd focus placed on said smoking by Kerry Washingtons character in every single scene confused me and annoyed me. I would say also that this film was poorly put together and some scenes just did not belong and served no purpose except to weakly attempt to permeate this films core with the Chris Rock brand of humor. Not even the rare fleeting moments of somewhat good portions that this film offers are enough to salvage this mistake of a movie. I would not suggest this film to even an enemy. If you choose to submit yourself to this form of torture then I shall pray for your soul.

Jason DeMoe