*Note* I just noticed that George_Chabot recently did an excellent job of reviewing this. He was more critical of Halle Berry's acting ability, but I didn't see anything wrong with it.

My dearest Mattjoe, Esquire,

With your recent Epinions reviews spewing forth eruptions of male hormones gone crazy for the titillating actress Halle Berry, I decided I must challenge the depths of your desire. I rented and viewed a much earlier movie of hers called B.A.P.S. in which she and Martin Landau star and Dennis Rodman has a cameo in the closing credits. None of the others like Natalie Desselle were familiar to me, but there was an Al Gore look-alike who was a bad, selfish jerk that crashed and burned in the end. You’ll probably giggle uncontrollably at that.

Another thing, Mattjoe. There are no firearms used; however, Halle yanks out a revolver once, aiming it menacingly at the hooded intruder. Maybe that’ll be enough to satisfy your concern of whether she is prepared for any emergency. And I do hope you don’t mind her in shortish blonde locks with a prominent gold tooth as was the style of chic blacks from the ghettos in the eighties. I personally found it rather repulsive. The orange spandex she wore in the first part of the movie was actually very funny, but more on that later.

The Story

As the movie opens we are treated to Halle Berry in a butt-skimming waitress’s dress as she goes about her business. It’s an ordinary café that serves soul food to black customers. On the television she hears about a rap singer in Hollywood holding auditions for “the video dance girl of the world” who receives ten...thousand...dollars and all of a sudden her big-mouth boss is yelling at her for not paying attention to her customers. He docks her ten dollars like that. After work, her very…how can I say this politely?…heavyset friend, one of the cooks, swishes home with her. Their loser boyfriends show up late apologizing for their neglect.

To put it as painlessly as possible, though, let me just say that life in the ghetto has lost its allure and the two girls give it all up to try to make their dreams come true in Hollywood. A scam artist spots them for the idiots they are and takes them to a rich, dying man’s mansion where Halle is to play the granddaughter of his one, true, lost love of his life. Lost because she was black and a servant and he was white and his family owned her.

Unbeknownst to the girls, the old man knows that Lily, his love, did not have any children, but he accepts the lie, anyway, and enjoys their company and soul food. The man’s nephew, the Al Gore double, had promised them ten thousand dollars for making his uncle’s last days full of happiness (he put it so much more ebulliently) and sneakily took pictures of them shopping on Rodeo Drive and disco dancing. I guess he thought his uncle would pay for him to not show them to somebody, I’m not sure who. His partner in crime tries to make them look like thieves, which may explain the pictures, but Halle pulls out that revolver and her friend, played to the hilt by Natalie Desselle, knocks him out with a vase or something. I don’t remember. The butler Manley, so affectionately brought to life by Ian Richardson and nicknamed Alfred like the butler from Batman, has begun to warm up to them by then and cleared their names.

The girls also liked the old man, played engagingly by Martin Landau, and refused the money from his nephew. Halle had her principles, you’ll be happy to know, Mattjoe.

That night the girls and the old man go dancing. He really lets loose, too, and suffers a heart attack. When the girls go to the hospital, the old man’s female lawyer welcomes them into his room to say goodbye. Maybe you can infer what happens in the rest of the movie, Mattjoe, but I’m sure you will enjoy watching it to find out!

Final Thoughts

Even if a gold tooth is repulsive, I still immensely enjoyed Halle Berry and indeed the whole movie. I've never seen her in another movie so I can't compare, but at least she keeps her clothes on in this one! It was laugh-out-loud hilarious in several places, such as when the toilet sprang a torrent of water out and the girls were slipping and sliding all over the bathroom and then when Halle took off her spandex jacket and did an impromptu dance like only a black girl from the ghetto with Halle’s figure could do.

But more importantly, Mattjoe, the girls were fun to be with for who they were. They might have looked and sounded like idiots sometimes, especially when seeing their favorite celebrities, but their good hearts always showed through. They were southern ladies from Decatur, Georgia, after all!

I know you’ll rent B.A.P.S (Black American Princesses as coined by the old man in his will) regardless of how well Halle and the others act or how wonderfully predictable the story is, Mattjoe. I’m sure you will still love Halle despite her gold tooth and you should because I loved her in this movie, too. I could identify with her and be proud of her like you will be, too.

Darn, I wish I had me some soul food now!

Love always,

Jankp

Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: VHS
Video Occasion: Good Date Movie
Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 9 - 12
Special Effects: Well at least you can't see the strings