All right, so "Guess Who" isn't the most original movie. Its premise about a white guy (Ashton Kutcher) meeting the parents of his black girlfriend (Zoe Saldana) is the racial reverse of the classic "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner" with Sidney Poitier. And the rest of the plot, in which Kutcher goes head to head with future father-in-law Bernie Mac and makes plenty of awkward faux pas while getting closer to him in the process, is straight from "Meet the Parents."
Still, the movie pulls off the old concept well, and there are several scenes in this one that will get big laughs.
Bernie Mac's vein-popping performance is probably the main reason the film works. Mac can look downright frightening when he's upset, and Kutcher doesn't even have to do much acting to make his scenes with this original king of comedy enjoyable. In one amusing scene, Mac forces Kutcher to tell a series of black jokes that receive both laughter and death threats.
Kutcher is, as usual, not exceptional in his performance, and not nearly as neurotic as Ben Stiller in "Parents," but he pulls the part off well enough. He is likable throughout the movie, which is all he really needs to be.
One great thing about "Guess Who" is that its jokes often show more restraint than the great majority of comedies. Whereas a movie like "Meet the Parents" used a great amount of slapstick, the awkward humor of this film mainly comes directly from the simple interracial premise. When Kutcher and Mac are in a car together and the radio begins playing songs about living on the wild side and family togetherness, the actors don't even need to react verbally to make the scene funny.
It's also nice to see a big comedy without the same star power as most films of this type. Despite being lesser known, Bernie Mac plays the part of angry father-in-law with far more life and energy than Robert DeNiro did in either "Parents" movie. Kutcher is a refreshing change of pace from Ben Stiller, a guy who's been in way too many movies lately.
"Guess Who" does not convey its pro-interracial message as powerfully as its Poitier-led predecessor. Instead the new film makes light of it through countless jokes and awkward moments. Whereas "Dinner," released in the '60s, was a timely drama, it's easy to forget that this film is a remake. There is some mention of the couple receiving looks and hearing terrible things said about them, but director Kevin Sullivan's emphasis is more on the comedy and less on the race issue.
Still, maybe it's a good thing that in today's times one can turn such a premise into a fun comedy rather than a thought-provoking drama. One would hope that the times are a-changing after all.
