(Rated PG 95 mins)
The best and the worst of the Slocumb family are on display when Woodrow Slocumb keels over from a stroke in front of his not-so-grieving wife (Whoopi Goldberg). As the town swelters in the summer heat so do the characters reach a boil with ascending friction, chaos and conflict between the adulterous son Junior,(Anthony Anderson), his wife (Jada Pinkett Smith) who is so annoying we feel like she deserves it, the boozer son (LL Cool J), and the nephew Royce (Darius McCrary) a skirt-chasing hoodlum. The laughs seem inappropriate with a funeral premise and much of the time we witness the antics through the rolling eyes of Whoopi the widowed mother hen. Director Doug McHenry, works from a screenplay by David Dean Bottrell and Jessie Jones (based on their play Dearly Departed). The only thing that saves this movie is the eulogy (barely) with its sitcom resolution and an attempt at solemn intent in its more dramatic moments.
