Booty Call

Years before winning an Oscar for Ray, the biopic about Ray Charles, Jamie Foxx was in Booty Call, a much less serious movie. Here, he is Bunz, the best friend of Rushon(Tommy Davidson), who is dating Nikki(Tamala Jones), and they decide on a double date, adding Lysterine(Vivica A. Fox) to the mix. All is going smoothly until the couples get in the mood, but the two guys don't have protection for safe sex. Most of film entails Foxx and Davidson on a quest to find condoms and their disastrous results.

Foxx has proved to be an incredibly versatile actor; from Ray, to Any Given Sunday, and even In Living Colour, the guy is a major talent. Booty Call is a silly, lightweight comedy, but Foxx and his costars make it funny and endearing. It is a one note joke, but the four major players work well together for a breezy 80 minutes.

After watching this movie, it was hard to move because my sides hurt so much from laughing. The hilarious standout performances of Vivica Fox, Tamala Jones, Tommy Davidson, and Jamie Foxx make this movie an entertaining film for anyone -- black or white, male or female. The knockout, yet brief, performance of Gedde Wantanabe (Long Duc Dong of Sixteen Candles) is enough to make you rewind the dinner scene again and again and again.

This movie is not as highly regarded as it should be. It should be up in the ranks of "Casablanca", "Gone with the Wind", and "How to be a Player starring Bill Bellamy". This movie has some of the greatest one liners that have even been thought up. Jamie Foxx gives a performance that is equal to that of Marlon Brando in "Godfather". This one gets and A-OK from me, the Communist Critic.

I picked this movie out of some obscure video store in Seoul, and what I saw afterwards is a movie that changed my life.

Jamie Foxx is a comic genius with his jokes ("you wait outside, and a f---in' sea donkey goes into your car") and impressions of famous black men. I rented the movie several times before finally buying it.

The scenes at the Chinese restaurant have to rank up there with the all-time greatest in comedy ("no fighting in restaurant -- cost you extra to fight in restaurant").

The movie did start to slow after Rushon gets shot in the leg and goes to the hospital. But before that, gosh, it had to be the funniest movie I've seen in years! I give it 8 out of 10.

I am almost embarassed to say I saw "Booty Call", but it was on Comedy Central last night, and I had some time to kill...

Basic premise - a guy has been going with a girl for 7 weeks and still has not gotten any, because he respects her and thinks she might be "the one". His girl also is very horny and asks her good friend (Lysterine) to join them on a double-date for safety, and she is fixed up on a blind date with Bunz. Bunz and Lysterine create immediate friction, but eventually, with the help of a dog licking toes under the table, they get set for some old-fashioned, no-commitment "booty."

However, both girls (two different adjacent apartments) want to practice safe sex, so the boys are sent out for "protection" at 2AM. They return with some, but the girls point out that "lambskins" don't protect against HIV, so they are sent out again, for "latex" condoms. Then they are later sent out for "saran wrap".

One of the boys is shot by an attempted hold-up of the convenience store, and there is an interesting hospital scene, no treatment for no insurance card, so one of them poses as a doctor to get him in. And, while he is at it, delivers a baby.

The script makes fun of lots of things, including Indians in turbans working at the store. It is not likely that much of the humor here will appeal to female viewers. I rate it "6" for the good acting and quite a few funny exchanges. See it if you can for free. After all, how do we recognize marginal movies unless we see some occasionally??