THE REEL: Nobody's Fool

A poster of the movie "Nobody's Fool". PHOTO | COURTESY

What you need to know:

  • Tiffany Haddish stars as the delinquent sister of Perry favourite Tika Sumpter.
  • Haddish just gotten out of jail and needs a place to stay. That place is her perfect sister's cushy apartment.
  • Her sister has a boyfriend she's never seen, and Haddish is convinced that he is catfishing her.
  • She makes an elaborate scheme to find out whether this is the truth

Starring Tiffany Haddish, Tika Sumpter, Amber Riley, Omari Hardwick, Whoopi Goldberg

 

It's okay to like Omari Hardwick. His very fine, very bronzed body is something that makes every voyeur-y episode of “Power” a little easier to power through. Some people, who also may watch “Empire”, may even argue that “Power” is a good show. I leave that to the masses of subjectivity.

But one thing that I think is a relatively objective fact is that Omari Hardwick cannot act. Or maybe he isn't trying to. Either way, that body of his is getting him a lot further than a foot through the door, and I'm not just talking about the Essence cover. Maybe there are depths to him that “Single Ladies” just has not shown me yet. And the thing is, I know what bad acting is. And so, for Hardwick, perhaps he just needs a better vehicle.

Nobody's Fool was not that vehicle. In fact, it was Nobody's vehicle. The only fools were all the people who thought it was a good idea to spend money on yet another cliché Tyler Perry movie in the first place. Once again, I'm talking about myself.

Tiffany Haddish stars as the delinquent sister of Perry favourite Tika Sumpter. Haddish just gotten out of jail and needs a place to stay. That place is her perfect sister's cushy apartment. Her sister has a boyfriend she's never seen, and Haddish is convinced that he is catfishing her. She makes an elaborate scheme to find out whether this is the truth, and the crew from the team of “Catfish” shows up.

I should have known that Perry was once again relying on the star quality of actors and appearances to keep the show going on.

From this point on out, there are spoilers, but trust me, you don't care.

PAINFUL STORY

The girls track down this catfishing dude to a random trailer park where Chris Rock gives a painful impression of a Jheri-curled conman, who has been using a voice modifier to hoax her into love. Haddish is pissed. The story should end there. We plod on to the painfully obvious romance between Sumpter and Hardwick, who doesn't work for her because he isn't her type.

To cut an incredibly long and painful story short, they find their way back to each other after a series of boring ups and downs that Sumpter’s assistant Amber Riley has to sit through; and into each other’s arms they fall in a stereotype-laden rain scene with Boys II Men playing in the background.

I can't believe they did that to Boys II Men, Amber Riley and Whoopi Goldberg. Everyone who bothered to watch this movie should get a personal apology from the producers and the directors, because I'm sure the scriptwriter knew it was a heaping, smelly pile of waste.

The plot holes were gigantic, the main character was an unlikeable, stuck up idiot – the main man was a clear masochist with a penchant for crazy women and it was about an hour and a half too long. Haddish, post Girls Trip, has managed to keep her lustre off through one terrible acting choice after the other. I can only hope Girls Trip 2 will redeem her when her character gets a little more fleshing out than the goofball she seems destined to play.

If you have money that you need to burn, you should buy a lottery ticket with a better chance of entertaining you as you hold on to a dull hope of winning a bet; or get internet that you can use to stream this movie for free in the comfort of your home where you can make your own popcorn, and thank God for the wisdom that allowed you to read this column instead of leaving your house to watch the movie.

I've taken one for the team, people. Learn from my mistakes. It’s no from me.