All About The Benjamins

Year: 2002

Grade: C+

Country: USA

Director: Bray

Review

mike epps is like martin lawrence, only not as funny, and ice cube always looks pissed. the film itself is fairly uninteresting because it’s just an action/comedy like most these days. eva mendes does a good job. she’s great looking and a more dynamic actress than you might think. watch her in this, out of time and stuck on you and you’ll see what i mean. i’ve noticed that a lot of “black films” (films that are made for/by african-americans) tend to play up race as an issue. there are more jokes about being white or black in films starring martin lawrence or ice cube than in those starring their equivalents (dane cook? and john cena?, close enough). i think this illuminates an important point: for black americans, race is still a very prominent issue. if it weren’t, then they wouldn’t feature is in their films as much. one can speculate as to why race is an issue, but that’s not my job here. in reading this particular cultural text i see the continuance of a trend, and i leave it up to you to assign meaning.