A Thin Line Between Love and Hate

Starring: Martin Lawrence, Lynn Whitfield, Regina King, Bobby Brown, Della Reese, Malinda Williams, Daryl Mitchell, Roger E. Mosley, Faizon Love, Tracy Morgan
Directed by: Martin Lawrence
Rating: R
Genre: Comedy, Drama
1996

Times Seen:
Tim: 1

Summary: A serial womanizer (Martin Lawrence) begins dating an unstable woman (Lynn Whitfield) but regrets it when he starts to fall for his childhood friend (Regina King).

Review:

Tim: Martin Lawrence is not a director. Well, technically, because of this film he was. But, he has no talent, no vision, no aptitude for it. He's not even that great of an actor, so it was a bit presumptuous for him to take on directing, starring, and story credit here. I can only assume this was a passion project of his, and if so, he needs better passions. If you're curious as to how disappointing this film was and is, it's still the only film Lawrence has directed and I write this 26 years after the film was released.

There's so much wrong with this movie. It's never egregiously bad, just numbingly lackluster. Maybe there was kernel of a good idea here- Lawrence obviously wants to tell a story about a philandering man who changes his life for the right woman- the only problem is he's currently dating the absolute worst, wrong woman. Okay, I can see there's the potential for something there. The problem that the script is terrible and Martin isn't much of a director and so whatever vision he had for this film is never realized. It's tonally all over the place- at times an absurd comedy, at times it tries to be a heartfelt drama. It amplifies the "woman scorned" piece so much, even name-dropping Fatal Attraction, a woman it obviously tries and fails to emulate. There's no clear vision here, no consistency- it's like Lawrence was creating a series of scenes that he pulls together into a narrative, but each one was built focusing on that one without much sense of how it would all hang together. Not surprisingly, it doesn't.

The movie lost my attention early on and it never fully recovered it. The movie doesn't approach anything with a realistic view- Lawrence is obviously infatuated with his own charm and we get many scenes that show how funny and witty and charming this lovable rascal is. He tries to leverage his natural energy, but something is lost with him in front of and behind the camera. He might be all these things, but he never gives the audience a reason to care about him or his current plight. So, when he wants to redeem himself, we don't really care. Lawrence does bring his energy to the role, I'll give him that. The problem isn't his performance- this was very much in his wheelhouse and he wisely leverages his strengths. The problem is the script and the direction.

The same issue comes with Lynn Whitfield. First off, I think she's a bad actress. I didn't care for her performance here at all. I do acknowledge maybe Lawrence's direction made her look worse. There's not much interest in her as a human being. She's there for one thing- to attract and then repel Lawrence's character. I'm not suggesting she deserved a great deal of sympathy, but the movie needed to be more interested in her character. Lawrence the director was interested in Lawrence the actor's character. He didn't seem to care at all about Whitfield and it shows. It's a bit misogynistic, especially when Regina King's character suffers a similar fate. Sure, she's in the air force and trying to build a better life, but this isn't explored in any detail or with any love. These women exist just to push the main (male) character forward in his journey. I recognize this is somewhat (sadly) expected from films in the mid-1990s, but it's especially egregious here.

In addition to being boring and not connecting emotionally with the audience, the film is almost shockingly unfunny. I'm not sure I laughed about anything at any point in the movie. Lawrence brings energy, but he's not able to look at his character objectively and allow him to be funny. His attempts mostly center around running his mouth and hoping people laugh. I didn't.

A Thin Line Between Love and Hate proves Lawrence should stick in front of the camera (and even then, only in supporting roles). It's a poor movie from start to finish. It's never completely terrible, but it's so far below what we'd expect from a film, even one from a first time director. It's a bad movie.

Rating 1-10
Tim's Rating- 5



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