NEW YORK (Top40 Charts) - Buying rapper-producer turned actor
Ice Cube as anything more than a streetwise badass with a knack for one-liners (see
Ghost of Mars,
Anaconda) is a stretch by anyone's imagination.
Roles like the one he had in Friday, where Ice Cube is only partially acting, are the types in which he excels, and All About the Benjamins, which opens Friday (March 8), is one such occasion.
Starring Cube as Bucum Jackson (get it?), a renegade bounty hunter with a passion for $600 fish, the action-packed flick sucks you in from the get-go. The film opens in the Florida Everglades with Ice Cube tracking down a trailer-trash criminal (Anthony Michael Hall) who -- expectantly -- isn't too keen on going to jail. As it turns out, his girlfriend and mother aren't too keen on bidding him farewell, either.
Shots are fired in a hilarious, fast-paced scene that sets the tone of the film as part action-comedy, part music video (the soundtrack bumps with Puff Daddy's "All About the Benjamins" remix). Cube escapes with his life, but grows more and more impassioned with his job and the money he's making. He dreams of starting his own private investigation firm.
Enter Reggie Wright (Mike Epps), a two-bit con man who is "allergic to the judicial system" and specializes in scamming convenience store clerks with the help of senior citizens. Reunited with Cube for the first time since the duo stole the show in 2000's
Next Friday, Epps takes over the film. Like fellow up-and-comer Seann
William Scott (
American Pie,
Road Trip), Epps breathes hilarity without even opening his mouth.
Reluctantly, Cube takes on Epps -- wanted on a small-time warrant -- as his next case. Meanwhile, Epps has scammed another store and purchased a lottery ticket in the meantime, dreaming of the $60 million jackpot. He puts the ticket in his wallet, and you know there is gonna be trouble.
While on the run from Cube, Epps gets mixed up in a $20 million diamond heist gone wrong. The fumbling criminal ends up accidentally hiding out in the bandits' getaway car where -- you guessed it -- he loses his wallet with -- you guessed it again -- the now winning lottery ticket.
So the plot is set with Epps trying to convince Cube to forget the bounty on him and partner up in search of his wallet and the $60 million jackpot. Cube thinks Epps is full of it, however, and is more interested in getting to the bottom of the diamond heist and, hopefully, the diamonds themselves.
What ensues is pure fun fueled by Epps' improvisational humor and the same on-screen Laurel and Hardy act between he and Cube that kept the laughs rolling in Next Friday. Throw in a few beautiful babies (Epps' girlfriend, played by the jaw-dropping Eva Mendes, and Cube's co-worker, Valerie Rae Miller) and a cameo by Lil' Bow Wow (a lil' street punk hot for Mendes), and it all adds up to one hell of a good time.
The soundtrack to the film, which features music by Puff Daddy (featuring Notorious B.I.G., Lil' Kim, and the Lox), Mya, and the O-Jays, hit stores Tuesday (March 5) on New Line Records.
