Tyler has done it again. He's made a hit featuring two of the most underused female talents in the game, Kathy Bates and Alfre Woodard. While perennial Oscar loser Annette Benning, Meg Ryan, Eva Mendes and Woo Girl are failing together in current box office bomb The Women, Tyler has bolstered the resumes of Kathy, Alfre, Taraji P. Henson and Sanaa Lathan. Hell, he even did the impossible and brought back Robin Givens. Matter of fact, let me rant about Robin right quick...
That's a bad bitch. She dominated every scene with her perfect diction and imperial sneer the way Lynn Whitfield has been trying to do for years. I see why Mike had to punch her in the head. She think she's better than everyone, and you know what? She really is. Her nose is eternally upturned throughout the film and she was looking at Sanaa like, "This my movie, trick...better ask somebody." You know she played the hell out that part when all the black women in the audience were cheering every time she came onscreen. What a comeback. Seriously, this is one of the best supporting performances I've seen all year. If there were any justice, she'd be recognized during award season, but she's a black woman in a black movie, so...
This is probably Tyler's most cohesive plot. Filled with the usual melodrama, The Family That Preys centers on two families, the Cartwrights and Pratts, held together by strong matriarchs, Bates and Woodard, respectively. The Cartwrights are owners of the largest construction firm in the city and they employ the husbands of Pratt daughters Andrea (Sanaa) and Pam (Taraji). Cole Hauser, as teutonic as ever, plays William Cartwright, the head of the company. He seduces newlywed Andrea, hiring her to work under him at the company...mmmhuh. They begin a four year affair that provides the foundation for a massive clusterfuck that threatens to tear both families apart. The best part of their affair is the stupidity of her husband. I swear, this nigga was the dumbest character ever written. He was the nicest awshucksy moron I've ever seen. Everyone in town knew the white guy was poking his woman, but all he did was run around talking about how he was gonna ask the guy for some money to start his own construction business. The fuck?
I respect what Tyler does for his women characters, but the way he writes men only bolsters my opinion that he is, indeed, a woman. Not only does he write men horribly, he's plays them horribly. What in the world was that thing on his head? Every time he kissed Taraji, you could virtually hear him thinking "Yuck."
Meanwhile, Kathy and Alfre don't feel like being bothered, so they take a trip cross country and have their own movie. That's right, they leave the kids to themselves and they have their own separate Thelma and Louise film. Only a genius like Tyler could make two movies in one and make it a box office success. Too bad Tarantino couldn't pull it off. MMMMHUH!
