'Welcome Home, Roscoe Jenkins'

Rating:

BY GENE SEYMOUR | gene.seymour@newsday.com

February 8, 2008

Whenever Martin Lawrence plays somebody who's supposed to be on top of things (say, for instance, the gung-ho cop in the two "Bad Boys" movies), he comes across as overbearing and overreaching. But when his characters get knocked down and he struggles to recover a modicum of dignity, Lawrence can do a slow burn as consummately as any movie comic in history.

So perhaps the most inspired aspect of "Welcome Home, Roscoe Jenkins" is its casting of Lawrence as its title character, a self-help guru whose daily talk show is a successful amalgam of Montel Williams, Jerry Springer and Dr. Phil. That he refers to himself as "R.J. Stevens" hints at some unresolved issues between Roscoe and his family back in Georgia.

Nevertheless, "R.J." grudgingly agrees to help celebrate the 50th wedding anniversary of his parents (James Earl Jones, Margaret Avery) by heading to the Jenkins homestead with his young son and his hyper-glam fiancee (Joy Bryant), a reality-TV superstar. Once there, as Roscoe had feared, he gets constant reminders of the awkward, insecure kid he used to be from Dad, his older brother (Michael Clarke Duncan) and a plethora of mouthy cousins, including money-grubbing Reggie (Mike Epps) and browbeating Betty (Mo'Nique).

Worse than any of these relations' sniping is Roscoe's humiliation over seeing his adoptive brother and close rival Clyde (Cedric the Entertainer) locked arm-in-arm with Lucinda (Nicole Ari Parker), for whom Roscoe once had carried a childhood torch.

Writer-director Malcolm D. Lee ("Roll Bounce," "Undercover Brother") piles on the sight gags, pratfalls, fat jokes and naughty innuendo as if he's afraid of losing the audience's attention. There are grace notes amid the clutter of spilled food and unruly behavior. It's a pleasant surprise, for instance, to find Duncan more relaxed and limber than he's ever been on screen as a jocular voice of reason. But he can't compete with the often over-emphatic broad comedy involving skunk spray, sweet tea and other assorted concoctions.

Then again, who goes to movies like "Welcome Home, Roscoe Jenkins" for subtlety? Lee knows exactly who his target audience is and if his movie's plot elements don't always gel, they'll at least nail that audience at all its emotional soft spots. Who knows? If it's successful, maybe Lawrence will be encouraged to take on more roles that will further erode the gratuitous swagger and force him to find even better means to glower and seethe.

WELCOME HOME, ROSCOE JENKINS (PG-13). Martin Lawrence is a big TV star who is cut down to size when he heads south for a family celebration of his parents' 50th anniversary. Even when the movie's overplayed or undercooked, its roughhousing energy grows on you. With Joy Bryant, James Earl Jones, Cedric the Entertainer, Mike Epps, Mo'Nique, Margaret Avery, Nicole Ari Parker and Michael Clarke Duncan. Directed and written by Malcolm D. Lee ("Roll Bounce"). 1:50 (vulgarities, risque humor, a few drug references). At area theaters.