Susan Granger’s review of “Just Wright” (Fox Searchlight Pictures)
Quite simply: Queen Latifah’s talents are wasted in this bland Cinderella-story set against a professional sports backdrop.
Newark, New Jersey-bred Leslie Wright (Latifah) is a hard-working physical therapist at a New York hospital on Roosevelt Island and die-hard basketball fan who just can’t seem to find her Mr. Right. That is – until suave NBA All-Star Scott McKnight (rap star Common from “Date Night,” “Terminator Salvation”), star of the (fictional) New Jersey Nets comes along. Although he’s involved with Leslie’s gorgeous, gold-digging god-sister, Morgan (Paula Patton from “Precious”), he winds up in her capable hands – literally – when a severe knee injury threatens to knock him out of the playoffs. Problem is: Leslie’s a self-described “perfect homegirl,” which means that, while she’s a girl and a friend, she’s not a girl-friend.
Anyway, Leslie Wright and Scott McKnight meet cute at a gas station as she’s filling up her old Mustang and he’s trying to figure out the gizmos on his new SUV. He invites her to a birthday party at his mansion, and she naively takes along conniving Morgan. That means Leslie gets shoved to the sidelines, warming the bench until later in the plot when she becomes McKnight’s full-time trainer and in-house psychologist. Eventually, of course, he succumbs to her warm, wise, womanly charms and so it goes. Except that Queen Latifah and Common exude zero chemistry and, therefore, believability. Without that essential ingredient, any romantic comedy fizzles.
Predictably written by Michael Elliot (“Brown Sugar”) and lackadaisically directed by Sanaa Hamri (“The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2”), it’s punctuated with energetic basketball sequences, innumerable Izod product placements and tepid cameos by real NBA pros, improbably presented as a courteous, chivalrous crew. Plus there’s a hip-hop soundtrack and all-too-brief appearances by Phylicia Rashad as Scott’s mom and James Pickens Jr. and Pam Grier as Leslie’s parents.
On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Just Wright” flounders in with a formulaic, feeble, feather-weight 5. Hopefully, sometime soon, someone will find the comedic vehicle that saucy Queen Latifah richly deserves.
