During a vacation road trip across the Midwest, Rae is irritated enough but when she finds out that Michael spent $10,000 more than she wanted to on a car she is annoyed because the money could have gone on the house. Rae abandons him at a garage and head to the nearest airport; Michael plans to follow her but when his car is stolen he finds himself stuck in the garage diner. As if dealing with the locals is not hard enough for Michael, a robbery at the garage just makes things more complicated for him.
Although it is apparent exactly what sort of film this was going to be, I was attracted by the presence of Nia Long and Jamie Foxx. The comedy is basic and I had hoped that the playing of the actors would provide enough energy to make up for what I expected to be pretty weak material. True to form the plot is stupid and the humour is very basic and I didn't really ever laugh. Happily the script avoids the usual reverse-racism that seems to be the norm in any comedy with black leads but it doesn't have a great deal going for it in its place.
The film seems to rely totally on the playing of the actors which is a problem because nobody really does that well. Imagine my disappointment when Nia Long turned out to have very little screen time to speak of. Looking down the barrel of the 2005 Oscars, it is amusing to look back and see Foxx as he used to be essentially a clowning comedian who had not been asked to actually act. Here that is all he does and he does manage to make his stuff a bit better thanks to his energy and charisma but he is not a miracle worker and he cannot raise the material apart from once or twice. The support cast features a surprising amount of well known faces but none of them really do much with the basic material; still, it was strange to see Corbin, Cullum, Busey, Hagerty, Jackson, Sanchez and a few other "known them when you see them" people.
Overall a pretty darn poor film all told with very basic material throughout. The cast are reasonably recognisable but only Foxx manages to inject energy and even then he only does it well now and again. Very few laughs and very little entertainment value Jamie Foxx looks to have moved on from this sort of stuff, so should you.
