You People is a Netflix romantic comedy directed by Kenya Barris, who co-wrote it with Jonah Hill. It had a limited theatrical run before making its way to the streaming service.

Ezra Cohen (Jonah Hill) is financier and hosts a podcast with his friend Mo (Sam Jay). He meets Amira (Lauren London) and the two fall in love. However, they have to get past their parents. Ezra’s Jewish parents Arnold (David Duchovny) and Shelley (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) are stuffy while Amira’s Black Muslim father Akbar (Eddie Murphy) and Fatima (Nia Long) are hesitant. It leads to a clash of cultures that jeopardizes their upcoming marriage.

While it is always nice to see Eddie Murphy back in acting, I was not impressed with the movie. It was almost like Hill and Barris said, “Let’s make this rom-com about some of the worst people on the planet and try to get audiences to endure themselves to them.” It was a failure.

I cannot say anything bad about the acting. Everyone did a competent job with the script they had to work with, which was not the best. Hill and Murphy did have a few lines of humor that produced some laughs, but they were incredibly rare. They did not even really utilize David Duchovny.

The movie is about a clash of culture. Being in an interracial marriage myself, this should have endeared me to the plot. Unfortunately, it did not. The movie came off as mean-spirited, crude, and out of touch with basic reality. Several films have come out previously touched on interracial relationships and even those between Black and Jewish families. Honestly, they have been much better. Even the Adam Sandler flick The Day Of had more nuance and handled the subject matter with greater subtly.

The entire movie felt like one long lecture where the movie took you from one exposition about who was the loudest victim to the next. It did not slow down either. It was every scene there was some sort of exposition dump with all of politically pandering buzzwords you could possibly imagine. It honestly got tiresome after all. This is what sucked the humor, I am pretty sure literally, out of the reels.

Bottom line, You People is an out of touch comedy that takes any semblance of humor out of its plot by way of lecturing the audience. It is not even worth it to see the great comedian Eddie Murphy back in business.

PARENTAL CONCERNS: Strong foul language, Substance abuse, Crude humor

FAVORITE QUOTE: Honestly, I’m starting to think I’m never going to meet a woman who understands me.

Check out the trailer below:

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