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✗ SKIP — Not worth it
Bringing Down the House poster

Bringing Down the House

2003 · 1h 45m · Comedy, Drama

IMDb 5.6 Metacritic 39 RT 33%

Skip it. This 2003 comedy relies heavily on fish-out-of-water stereotypes and hasn't aged well—the premise of an escaped convict 'teaching' an uptight lawyer to be cool feels dated and more cringey than funny. Unless you're specifically hunting for early-2000s Steve Martin nostalgia, your time is better spent elsewhere.

Plot

Uptight lawyer Peter Sanderson wants to dive back into dating after his divorce and has a hard time meeting the right women. He tries online dating and lucks out when he starts chatting with a fellow lawyer. The two agree to meet in the flesh, but the woman he meets — an escaped African-American convict named Charlene — is not what he expected. Peter is freaked out, but Charlene tries to convince him to take her case and prove her innocence. Along the way, she wreaks havoc on his middle-class life as he gets a lesson in learning to lighten up.

Director: Adam Shankman

Cast: Steve Martin, Queen Latifah, Eugene Levy, Joan Plowright, Jean Smart

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