DELIVER US FROM EVA []
Hokey romantic comedy. Running time: 105 minutes. Rated R (sex-related dialogue). At the Empire, the Union Square, the Magic Johnson, others.
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THE team of scriptwriters behind “Deliver Us From Eva” obviously expended all their creative energy on the catchy title and then promptly ran out of steam with their noisy, sitcom-ish take on “The Taming of the Shrew.”
James Iver Mattson, B.E. Brauner and director Gary Hardwick (who also gets a screenwriting credit) deliver a smattering of funny lines, but those few moments are swamped by shrill acting, oh-so-predictable plotting and lowest-common-denominator humor.
The shrew in question is Eva Dandridge (Gabrielle Union from “Bring It On” and Hardwick’s “The Brothers”), a hard-charging feminist who uses streams of “$50 words” to verbally castrate any man unlucky enough to cross her path.
This clever, articulate perfectionist – whose work as a health inspector allows her to periodically snap on plastic gloves with sadistic relish – reserves her choicest words for the men her three sisters have chosen to spend their lives with.
Eva sacrificed her own hopes and dreams to raise her sisters – Kareenah (Essence Atkins), Jacqui (Meagan Good) and Bethany (Robinne Lee) – after their parents were killed in a car crash.
In return, they worship her and slavishly follow her advice, which is usually detrimental to the interests of their respective husbands and boyfriends – Tim (Mel Jackson), Darrell (Dartanyan Edmonds) and Mike (Duane Martin).
The men (who, as well as being irredeemably dopey, reveal themselves to be unattractively mercenary in their desire for a slice of the Dandridge family trust fund) decide, neanderthally, that the answer to their problems is to match Eva up with a boyfriend.
Enter LL Cool J ,in his first romantic leading man role, as Ray, a cash-strapped “player” who eagerly pockets $5,000 to seduce Eva.
The man born James Todd Smith looks desperately uncomfortable in his new on-screen incarnation – his repertoire of seductive mannerisms runs to a feverish licking of his lips alternated with the occasional eyebrow lift, which combine to make him look more nervous than sexy.
The romance plays out predictably – although no one could have foreseen the film-makers’ decision to plonk LL Cool J on a horse – and the meddlesome Eva’s grating histrionics and exaggerated facial tics gradually peter out to reveal a soft, sweet, vulnerable creature.
Until, of course, she finds out about the deceitful plot.
Subtlety is a foreign concept to everyone involved in this slapstick production, from the writers who made Ray a meat delivery man, to the director who thinks it’s terribly clever to cut from Eva giving her sister’s husband a tongue-lashing to a shot of her vigorously chopping up a cucumber.