Looking through Van Elders films and their ratings, I can only believe that he's asks family and friends to get on the site and rate everything a 10. These ratings are not deserved. I've seen the films.
First, let me say that I root for Van Elder to do well. He is obviously dedicated to making films. I was at a screening for this film, and he, with the help of his crew, took what they had available and persevered through the sometimes arduous process of making a film. The shame of it all is that they went through all of this hard work, as films require, and ended up with an amateurish, barely watchable, mess.
To say that the writing was bad would be like saying that Jeffrey Dahmer was troubled or that Al Qaeda is mischievous. There were all of three funny lines in this "comedy" and each one was stolen from other films. Elders should have realized that his audience might have seen films such as 'Fear of a Black Hat' and would already be familiar with the comedy of Chris Rock. It's deplorable to out and out steal comedic lines without giving them credit. Beyond that, the story was as predictable as the sun rising, though not nearly as entertaining. There was no real story thread, and the only character arc was for a snotty secondary character who no one cared about. Then, like many amateur writers, Elders tried to tie everything up in a neat bow by forcing an ending. Of course by that point, I just wanted the credits to roll.
The only positive thing I have to say about the film is that the performances of the two male leads were decent. Laz Alonso must truly be a funny comedic actor, because even with the witless lines he was given, his personality grabbed a couple of laughs that were not at all a result of the writing.
Van Elder is not a writer. If he is a filmmaker, I hope he recognizes his shortcomings and searches for a good script to make. He seemed quite proud of this film at the screening, but someone needs to tell him the truth. He will never be a successful filmmaker starting with scripts like this one.
