Meet the Blacks movie review & film summary (2016)

There also may have been some legitimate, relevant intent: “Our lead actress looks like Sofia Vergara—let’s just mention the name Sofia Vergara; that’ll be good for a laugh! We got Mike Tyson to do a cameo, and he’s willing to play a deranged party clown and wear a silly wig! But still, let’s do an ear-biting joke anyway. Just ‘cause, you know, it’s Mike Tyson.”

It very well might have gone down this way. You may find your mind wandering toward such theories during “Meet the Blacks,” given that the movie itself is so shaggy and shambling—and not in a pleasingly lived-in, Richard-Linklater kind of way. Just in a messy, incoherent way.

On its most basic level, “Meet the Blacks” is a spoof of “The Purge,” the 2013 thriller about a near-future America that’s peaceful and crime-free because one night a year, everyone is allowed to go on a murdering, thieving rampage of catharsis. But it puts a racial spin—supposedly for satirical purposes—on a movie that already was a satire of society’s ills. “Meet the Blacks” doesn’t have much to say, though, and doesn’t say it with much bite.

Mike Epps stars as Carl Black, who moves his family from a poor and violent section of Chicago to a wealthy enclave of Beverly Hills. (The gated subdivision is actually called Blanco Cielo, or White Sky.) Even the security guard at the front gate, who’s also black, doesn’t believe Carl belongs there. “I’m the new (n-word) who lives here!” Carl angrily insists. Others questioning his family’s presence include the overzealous neighborhood watch guy (an uncomfortable thing to joke about) and the super WASPs next door, Jim and Mary Smith. “It’s a little ironic that your name is Black,” says the chirpy Mary, in what becomes a repeated and not particularly funny joke.

But as it turns out, in addition to his wiring business, Carl can afford to live in a faux French Normandy McMansion because he stole a bunch of cash and weed from a drug dealer named Key Flo (Charlie Murphy). Then he dashed across the country with his family: his stereotypically sexy Latina wife, Lorena (Zulay Henao); sassy teenage daughter, Allie (Bresha Webb); quirky son, Carl Jr. (Alex Henderson); and creepy ex-con cousin, Cronut (Lil Duval). (An aside: Everyone refers to Carl Jr. throughout as Carl’s Jr., like the fast-food chain, which isn’t exactly hilarious the first time.)

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