Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins (2008) Movie Information:

Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins (2008) Directed by: Malcolm D. Lee Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins (2008) Written by: Malcolm D. Lee Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins (2008) Cast: Martin Lawrence, Margaret Avery, Joy Bryant, Michael Clarke Duncan, Louis c.k., Mike Epps, Nicole Ari Parker, Cedric The Entertainer, James Earl Jones

Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins (2008) U.S. Distributor: Universal Pictures Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins (2008) U.K. Distributor: UIP

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Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins (2008) Synopsis:

Martin Lawrence stars as talk-show sensation Dr. RJ Stevens, who has shirked his simple Southern past and the awkward boy he used to be to dispense "you can do it" advice to millions of adoring fans. With a reality-series star on his arm and loads of cash in his pocket, there's nothing he feels he hasn't achieved. When his parents request that he come home for their 50th wedding anniversary, RJ packs up his 10-year-old son and spoiled princess of a fiancée and heads back to his sleepy, Southern hometown. Ready to impress his down home kin with how much he's changed, RJ will prove he's not the walking disaster they used to pick on. At least, that's the plan... But as his crazy, lovable family reminds RJ of the kid he once was and the big-ego'd adult he has become, this superstar will take a hard look at the life he is living. Roscoe Junior might've felt teased, second best and laughed at as a child, but the love from home could be turning Dr. RJ into a better man.

Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins (2008) Movie Review:

Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins is an overlong, cliché ridden, stereotypical and predictable mess of a comedy, but somewhere under its slapstick surface is a funny movie experience. Though not a guilty pleasure by any means, Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins is just overcooked in so many ways, but one can’t help laughing at this comedy from writer/director Malcolm D. Lee (The Best Man).

The film centers around RJ Stevens (Martin Lawrence) a popular and very successful self-help television host that has recently engaged the self-absorbed Bianca (Joy Bryant), who is a media darling a ex-winner of the reality series Survivor. To much dismay, RJ finally gives in to his 10-year old son Jamal’s (Damani Roberts) request to go back to RJ’s southern hometown in Georgia for his parents’ (James Earl Jones and Margaret Avery) 50 year anniversary. Along with Jamal and his new fiancée, RJ heads back home to where he has not been for 9 years, due to the ridicule he always experience at the hands of his family. Arriving back to tiny Dry Springs, Georgia, RJ reunites with all of his family, where is merely called Roscoe Jenkins, not RJ Stevens. His mother is supportive, but his old-school father is still hard on him and calls him “boy.” His older brother Otis (Michael Clarke Duncan) is the local sheriff and his sister Betty (Mo’Nique) is the loud mouth of the family. There are also his cousins, the scheming Reggie (Mike Epps), and Clyde (Cedric the Entertainer), who always had a one up on Roscoe throughout their childhood. The competition immediately resurfaces between the two, when Clyde arrives with Lucinda (Nicole Ari Parker), who was RJ’s childhood sweetheart.

The dysfunctions of the family are viewed in every comedic sense and the predictable theme of though family are always headaches, they are still always family is evident from the first ten minutes of the film. Lee’s script also inhabits every cliché in the book on Roscoe’s journey back to family roots. Though some of Lee’s choices are tired (the childhood sweetheart reconnection) and desperate (a spraying skunk), the slapstick humor in Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins works well for laughs and will ultimately please audiences. The film is overlong, clocking in around two hours including a more scenes of the film running on through the credits.

The cast’s physical comedy is the commendable and a few of the one-liners are hysterical as well. Martin Lawrence is in the title role, but for the first time in his career he lets the rest of the cast express their talents more than him trying to be the focus. Lawrence does nothing special as Roscoe Jenkins, but it is nice to see him share this comedy as a whole, rather than just he headlining it. Cedric the Entertainer is surprisingly tired in his role as the aggressive Clyde, which also could be blamed on the script. Joy Bryant overdoes her role as the fake fiancée Bianca, but young Damani Roberts is strong as Roscoe’s son. The dramatic chops mostly come from the great James Earl Jones and Margaret Avery as elder parents of the family, which gives nice balance to the comedic moments in the film. Michael Clarke Duncan is lovable as Roscoe’s’ older and bigger brother, Otis, but the real standouts of the cast are Epps and Mo’Nique. Mike Epps arrives early and is irresistibly funny in every scene he is in as the shady cousin Reggie. From impersonations, to degrading of character, to even showing up in a cowboy hat in a scene, Mike Epps almost single handedly walks off with this picture on his own. Same can be said for Mo’Nique as the loud-mouth instigator of the family. It is even almost too much when she beats up Roscoe half-way through the film, but her delivery is so on cue that the scene is still amusing. The one bathroom scene where it is just her and Epps improvising and working off of one another is absolutely memorable.

Story wise, Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins is nothing fresh, but the supporting cast makes the film enjoyable. This film should be a modest hit with moviegoers, it may even spawn a sequel ala Meet the Parents.

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Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins (2008) review written by: Bailey Henderson