TAKE “The Big Chill,” replace the characters with black professionals and drop out the politics and Motown score, and you’ve more or less got the frequently hilarious “The Best Man.”
What draws these six friends together for a reunion seven years after their college graduation isn’t a funeral – it’s the wedding of Lance (Morris Chestnut) a professional football running back, and his longtime love, Mia (Monica Calhoun).
Lance’s best man is Harper (Taye Diggs), an ambitious Chicagoan whose autobiographical first novel has just been chosen as a selection for Oprah’s book club.
But an advance copy has begun circulating among his old classmates in New York City. And Jordan (Nia Long), an equally ambitious TV producer who’s angling to get a scoop on the wedding for her network, has figured out that Harper has more or less admitted sleeping with the bride-to-be during their college days.
When the troublemaking Quentin (Terrence Howard) jokingly suggests to Lance that Mia might not have been strictly faithful during his promiscuous college days, Lance explodes in a jealous fury – a fury that makes Harper very nervous, since he knows Lance is slowly making his way through Harper’s book.
“The Best Man” climaxes with a wild and bawdy bachelor party, during which the truth gradually dawns on Lance – with near-lethal results for Harper.
Malcolm D. Lee (his cousin Spike produced) makes an auspicious debut as a writer-director with “The Best Man.” But he’s more assured as a writer than he is behind the camera.
But the performances by the attractive ensemble cast are uniformly solid, especially when it comes to the romantic chemistry between Diggs (“Go”) and Long (“Stigmata”) as two careerists whose egos tend to get in the way of their happiness.
“The Best Man,” which should please a more mainstream audience than most movies with predominately black casts, builds to a side-splitting, and ultra-romantic climax.
Stick around when the credits roll; one of the biggest laughs comes in the middle of them.
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THE BEST MAN
Starring Taye Diggs, Nia Long and Morris Chestnut. Written and directed by Malcolm D. Lee. Running time: 118 minutes. Rating: R. At the Criterion, the 84th Street, the Union Square, others.