Nov 99: Blue Streak

Word has it that Columbia Pictures removed the advanced screening of Blue Streak from the Urbanworld Film Festival in order to avoid press reviews. This last minute removal made a few of us nervous and even apathetic about attending the scheduled press screenings. And for good reason. Usually, studios avoid media coverage when they know beyond a shadow of a doubt that their film is a stink bomb of astronomical proportions.

So it was with trepidation that blackfilm.com decided to ante up loot to see Martin do his thing. It was unwarranted though. Who knows what Columbia Pictures was so scared. Blue Streak smoked the competition with a $19 million opening weekend. And, even more important, it was pretty funny.

SYNOPSIS

Martin Lawrence returns to the big screen as a playful, wisecracking jewel thief (Miles Logan) with his sights set on a diamond worth enough to set him and his robbing crew straight for life. But when the heist goes awry and Lawrence gets arrested, he has no choice but to hide the rock and hope to find it again once he gets out of jail. The problem? The abandoned building he stashed the diamond in has turned into a police precinct in the interim. When Lawrence finally sneaks into the building in the guise of an LAPD detective, all he has to do is find the diamond before they find out he's a fake, and keep the ghosts of his past (who all want a slice of the pie) from catching up with him. In the process, Lawrence creates some very humorous moments.

Though there are a few scenes that were intended to be funny that fall flat, Lawrence proves that he is a master of keeping at a joke 'til he finally gets a laugh out of you. He is partnered with Luke Wilson and Dave Chapplle-- two other known comic commodities-- but, at least in this film, neither is well suited to match Lawrence's hyper-kinetic brand of humor. Had there been some other actors as well-versed in comic timing, this could have easily been a roll-in-the-aisles-funny affair.