ekeby I agree Loretta Devine is a joy to watch. Even with the sub-par dialog she's given, she works wonders.The plot is shopworn, but I wouldn't care if it were done cleverly. It isn't, but what really torpedoes this movie is the lackluster dialog, especially as the main character is supposed to represent a writer. I'm not speaking of those colorful explosions of verbosity that occasionally punch through--I'm speaking of all the exposition. All that dialog about who is where and why and how. It's as dull as donuts. The writer missed a lot of potential fun with words, I think.I also think this film suffers from poor editing. There is a lot of slow cutting, probably for anticipated laughs, but the situations rarely generate the laughs to fill up the time. Not from me, anyway. Truly, I think cutting 15 or 20 minutes out of this film would help it a lot.The performances are generally good, though I thought combining over-the-top caricatures with low-key realism made for a confusing mix. Pick a style and stick to it.

pjchatman This is an Black gay film. Not white. Not yellow. Not brown. Black. That said – Maurice Jamal, wrote acted (he plays Sherman's brother Eugene), directed, & produced this film, did a outstanding job of portraying a Black American family & their issues with homosexuality, which for Black Americans is more emotional than other races given the spiritual bond with church & home not seen in other races.This film is about Sherman-Patrick's (he goes by Patrick in New York & his family calls him Sherman) life being upset when he gets news he's a father. Upon arriving home he is confronted with his bullheaded mother, loving sister, resentful brother, & his very self-righteous Aunt. His problems gets worse when his boyfriend follows him to Paris, GA looking for answers (whether Gabriel is his son, & why Patrick lied about his Mother, and his name). This film has some very good drama & comedy, but you have to 'get it'. Since this is not a white-gay, Latin-gay, or Asian-gay film, they won't get it. But I did.The film starts off, yes, sloppy. We are indeed confused when see young Gabriel going to the airport, & then in the very next scene coming back home from the airport with Sherman. Jamal left the whole period of what happened when Gabriel was in New York until after Chapter 3 (the film's chapter, not the DVD). We, at first, are lead to believe that the family knows he's gay. This would certainty explain why he and his Mom argue when they meet after he brings Gabriel home. We even think he knows who Gabriel is for a minute or more. This makes the beginning feel very uneven, only because Jamal decides to tell us later what happened in New York rather than before – which again made the beginning uneven. But when Sherman/Patrick finds Ryan, his boyfriend, on the porch of his childhood home waiting for him (Ryan thought he was having an affair with another man named Sherman), the cat is let out the bag & the film falls into place, & continues from there. There are other silly scenes, but this is the particular character of the director (Cookie's 'crunch', the triple 'gasp', Aunt Lettuce's four sons) and just shows he has unique sense of direction.No film dealing with race and homosexuality is going to be 'perfect', but if it speaks to the intended audience than it accomplished it's goal. To Us (Blacks) we don't see Gay films as an excuse to get naked and swear. We explore the emotional-personal side of the lifestyle and not the sexual that most other races tend to focus on.To quote a white gay person: "'eye candy' seems like too strong a statement considering (again) no love scene, no shirtless scene, not even a muscle shirt... So by any reasonable measure, this is not really a 'Gay' movie." Ahem, Blacks live very different lives, and most are very spiritual. So the Gay experience for us is very different from those of other races. This was Black Gay film; therefore, no sex, no shirtless hunks, no shirtless hunks having sex – that's porn.

dennhunt I caught this at a film festival, and I won't be surprised if it gets pulled the weekend after it opens in its limited release in New York and Los Angeles. It's just not watchable.This is a disappointing sophomore attempt by Jamal, who resorts to the same old one-liners delivered by stereotypical characters - so wooden and absent of any development that the viewer never quite connects with any of them.Loretta Devine is good - but not great. I've seen her in far better work. Her skills are out of place with the pedestrian acting capabilities of the rest of the cast and the "phone-it-in" direction.The only thing worse than the terrible production values is the predictable story. I found myself looking at my watch half way through the film, hoping for the end after I finally realized I didn't care about the story, the characters, or the outcome of the plot. What a disappointment for the black LGBT community.Save your money - my hunch is that this will be buried in the 99 cent give-away bin at local drugstores.

R Gordon I caught a screening of this movie last year in Atlanta, GA. While the depiction of the Rockmond Dunbar's character was a bit trite, that facet didn't overwhelm the story. Loretta Devine was consistent, delivering a wonderful performance as the mother, and Sommore surprised the room with (1) her appearance at the screening and (2) her dramatic performance in this movie. This film is full of laughs, awkward moments, and, hopefully, a bit of enlightenment for men who continue to live separate lives...one when with their hometown family and another life hundreds of miles away in 'the life'.The main character's stereotypical high-voiced, dainty gay man character really bugged me. In reality, most gay men do not act like this--even when you find one, there are seldom two of them in a relationship (as shown in the movie). I'm not sure why the character was written this way, but, it's not my movie...I hope this film is well received. I will be seeing it again when it is released--not with my family, of course ;)