The Cookout

A rising pro basketball star (credited onscreen as “Storm P,” but on the Internet Movie Database as Quran Pender) has a family cookout in the backyard of his new mansion, to the dismay of his uptight neighbors (Danny Glover and Farrah Fawcett) and the consternation of the local security guard (Queen Latifah). Storm, or Pender, or whoever he is, has a nice screen presence. Jenifer Lewis and Frankie Faison are good as his parents, and the ever-reliable Tim Meadows gets some laughs as a conspiracy-minded would-be lawyer. Otherwise, the movie is a dead loss. The awful script is the work of six—count ’em—first-time writers (including Latifah herself). Most of the cast overacts, as if the camera were half a mile away. Director Lance Rivera has never directed a movie before, and he doesn’t start here.