Love Come Down (2000)

I Don't Want To Dance

- If Spike Lee made an after school special, it would look something like Clément Virgo's terrible 2000 film Love Come Down.

Neville (Larenz Tate) and Matthew Carter (Martin Cummings) struggle, and they have their former father and current vices to thank for it. And so the story goes: both guys struggle with their family, Neville struggles with drugs and trying to do some sort of speech routine as he meets a girl who is struggling with her multi-ethnic family tree (Deborah Cox) and Matthew struggles with his seeming need for violence. Naturally, throughout the film both characters struggle on screen in the most watered-down and lame-duck way possible, making the film nearly impossible to take seriously.

One can tell that director Virgo is trying to say something about race and family with Love Come Down but it is really hard to care one iota about any of it because of the pathetic acting, the laughable dialogue and the been-there-done that cinematic style (I am wondering if Spike Lee and Martin Scorsese should have received some credit for directing the film - or at the very least a "Thank You" at the end of the film's credits). Not helping the film is the fact that every scene is seeping with so much heavy Hollywood-perfect cherry-on-top melodrama, due to either the nature of the script or the horrid cast, that it is cinematically frustrating (the best part is when one man begins to get all buddy-buddy with his wife's former lover who fathered the child he had to raise). It is not usually a good thing when you are laughing at the sad or tender parts of a film - yet that is what occurs often while viewing Love Come Down.

See the film if you must, you will at least get a good laugh, but I suggest avoiding Love Come Down like the mother trucking plague.

CBC Rating: 2/10