|
From the beginning of Deliver Us From Eva, the old
Ray (LL Cool J) is gone. The player of all players,
the man among boys, has moved on to a higher level. His face
adorns a funeral altar. His symbolic ashes lay silently in
an urn.
The premise of the movie is simple. The story revolves around
a family of four successful, beautiful women, who are all
committed, except for officious Eva (Union). Eva, a
hardworking and sharp-tongued health inspector, has steered
and molded her younger sisters since their parents passed
when she was 18. She serves as both their mother and father,
forsakes her own ambitions for their greater prosperity, and
becomes an adamant feminist and hater of men in the process.
But her sisters’ boyfriends are sick of Eva’s rules and regulations.
The boys join forces to eliminate prying and manipulative
Eva from meddling in their relationships. They want to rule
their love nests like all real men should, and stopping Eva’s
incessant jabbering is a sure way to get their manliness back
and their ladies into bed. They resolve to pay a man to court
Eva away from Bitch-ville. A little shish-boom-bah might warm
her icy heart up.
So Ray shows up. He licks his lips in all the right places,
loves Eva’s spicy beans, and is being paid five thousand smackers
from you-know-who to do and say all the right things. As the
atmosphere heats up around Ray and Eva, the tension cools
for the masterminds and their lovers. That is, until Ray and
Eva develop the perfect relationship and the men start getting
compared to romantic, chivalrous, and honest Ray. The plan
foiled, the boys transfer matters back into their own misjudging
hands, and subsequently ruin Ray and Eva in the process.
Heartbroken, Eva accepts her overdue promotion and moves
to Chicago. But L-L-love is hard to resist. What we learn
at the end of the movie is that Ray has indeed moved on, not
to the netherworld, but to the level of true blue love.
LL Cool J plays a charming romantic lead, and the women in
the audience were verging on orgasmic bliss during his screen
time. Straying from his usual supporting roles, LL’s looks
should override his undeveloped (but promising) acting chops
for most audiences.
Director and writer Gary Hardwick has fashioned an
uncomplicated romantic comedy, which proves slightly likeable
despite its predictable plot line and foreseeable ending.
The fast tempo keeps the attention ante up. As banal as most
romantic comedies are, Deliver Us From Eva does hold
its own in the comedic zone. The film is jam-packed with side-splitting
and unforgettable one-liners. The zingers compensate for most
other shortfalls, including the mediocre acting. Despite their
inadequacies in developing a cohesive ensemble cast, the comedic
timing of the actors is worth mentioning.
More importantly, however, you get to see LL half-naked.
And we all know that the ladies love Cool J.
—Sandra M. Ogle
|
out of 5
While we would never encourage anyone to destroy a video... 
