Cross-Dressing the Mind: Think Like A Man
Did I walk out? Yes. Did I like the movie?
Sort of, yes. What was my favorite part? I can’t remember. But there were laughs.
This is yet another movie I paid big bucks to see in the theater, and if it were on television, I would change the channel within two minutes.
Think Like A Man is really an advertisement for the Steve Harvey self-help book, Act Like A Lady, Think Like A Man. The book is ostensibly for women; the movie is not. Though Kevin Hart is the narrator, Steve Harvey often looks at the camera knowingly quotes his book. I haven’t read Harvey’s book, but it seems like it would be up my alley since I’ve recently, more than ever, imagined the kind of woman I would be. I have found I have much more confidence in myself when I describe the woman I could have been: good looking, funny, all about the sack, messy hair and apartment, crazy but fun, great ass and legs, very solid drummer, and too emotional when it comes to love. In short, I would have been mulch when it comes to men and I would have needed every word of Steve Harvey’s manuscript. On how to get and keep a man. I guess the point of all this is, I am closer to buying Steve Harvey’s book than I was twenty-four hours ago. I wonder if Harvey was even paid to play himself in Think Like A Man, or his publisher advised him to do it for free.
Besides Harvey as Harvey, how many characters were there? Too many. Five dudes maybe? And an equal amount of women, I guess. There is the ultra successful woman (Taraji P. Henson) who is cut off emotionally. The single mom who needs a father for her son – and what a role to dig into for Regina Hall! The hot babe (Meagan Good) who will not have sex for ninety days. The semi-pothead girlfriend (Gabrielle Union) who is tired of pretending she likes to play with her boyfriend’s action figures late into the night. (The truth is, I can only think of these women in relation to their respective men. That’s bad.) I can’t remember the fourth woman, if there is one. In terms of the men, I liked Romany Malco, the smooth ladies’ man. I found him charming and I liked it when his date makes him play his R&B band’s CD and the opening lyric is, I believe, “I had a dream about a dream about you.” He makes jokes and has a good straight face. The only part about him that I did not buy was that he’s a ladies’ man. He seems more like a husband. If I were a woman, I would want to settle down with him, not have a fling. But maybe that’s his angle. Like I said, I would be mulch. Then there is the extremely handsome chef-to-be (Michael Ealy). Working as valet and caterer and short order cook, he has dreams of opening up his own restaurant and he is trying to date Henson, the successful CEO with her devil horn eyebrows and hair that sometimes hides one of the horns. And there’s more: the mama’s boy and the single mom – how appropriate. Like a two piece puzzle. That was the most boring. Why do I care about this relationship? Did I care about any relationships in this movie? Not really, no. The all dude scenes are the best, like in Knocked Up, but not that drastic. Okay. Here’s my point. A movie with a plot as basic as this one – the When Harry Met Sally mold – should not be over ninety minutes, and at the very most, a hundred minutes. However, because of the five piece storyline thing – or it could have been four, I can’t remember – the movie is one hundred and twenty-two minutes, which feels never-ending.
The saving grace, of course, is Kevin Hart: the only single character in the movie with no romantic storyline, unless you count divorces as romantic. Kevin Hart is a comedian who I was introduced to a few months ago. In Think Like A Man, he has the obligatory job of dominating every scene he’s in. He is rants and puffs out his chest and appears vulnerable; most of it he pulls off. But even for someone who loves Kevin Hart, I would still say skip this. It’s not worth it. Watch Laugh At My Pain or Seriously Funny, though the latter of which I have not seen.
