Soul Food

Terms of Endearment with a middle-class Chicago black family instead of an upper-class Southern white one, Soul Food is a feel-good, feel-bad, then feel-good-again affair that packs in as many crises into two hours as it can. The shit hits the fan for the clan when the family matriarch, Big Momma (Irma P. Hall), slips into a coma. As she lies still in the hospital, daughters Teri (Vanessa Williams) and Maxine (Vivica A. Fox) bicker over finances while third daughter Bird (Nia Long) copes with her husband's criminal past and present. The men married to the daughters try to help, but their poor advice, infidelities, and other screw-ups only make matters worse. It's finally up to Maxine's pint-size son Ahmad (Brandon Hammond) to persuade the fam to get together for some good down-home cooking at a reconciliation Sunday dinner. It's hard to not to connect with the cute little kid with a Big Momma-size heart. Unfortunately, by having Ahmad narrate ad nauseam, writer/director George Tillman Jr. piles too much on the boy's plate. Add that to all the soap-opera dribble and saccharine R&B (Babyface executive-produces), and this film leaves you with an upset stomach. At the Harbour Mall, Showcase, Starcase, and Tri-Boro cinemas.

-- Mark Bazer