The Sandspur

Issue date: 3/26/07 Section: Arts & Entertainment

There's a French new wave film that writer, director and star Chris Rock says he based his new film, "I Think I Love My Wife," on.
That would be Eric Rohmer's 1972 feature, "Chloe in the Afternoon," a sweet-sad little "moral tale" that a lot of Chris Rock fans may not have seen.

No matter, because save for the essential set-up and a few superficial touches, Rock's new movie is mostly based on one of his stand-up routines with which all of his fans will be exceedingly familiar. In his stand-up persona, Chris Rock is never smarter/
stronger/funnier than when he is prowling the stage talking about the contradictory impulses and demands of being a married man. But something gets lost in the transition to big-screen story, and smart, strong and funny have nothing to do with his character,
his performance or his movie.

With Rock providing extended narration, we meet his Richard Cooper, a happily married investment banker who outwardly appears
to have the perfect life. Inwardly, however, he's bored and restless, mainly because his beautiful wife, Brenda (Gina Torres), refuses to have sex with him _ in a montage of chilly receptions, she greets his amorous advances with the disclaimer, "My face hurts." As familiar as this terrain may be in
movies, it is universal and essential enough to provide plenty of opportunities for comic insights and funny-because-it's-true moments.
And when Richard's sexy single friend from the past, Nikki (Kerry Washington) pops back
into his life, the scene is set.

But, as written by Rock with the help of co-writer/comedian Louis C.K., the movie never
breaks the surface of its characters or their situation. And Rock's paint-by-numbers approach as director only compounds the
movie's flat and formulaic feel. As a performer, Rock can conjure vulnerability and menace in the same breath, but as an actor not counting his crackhead in "New Jack City" _ Rock is stuck somewhere between mild-mannered and irritated. He occasionally
flashes with that righteous rage, but only in throwaway lines and sideline scenes, as when he manufactures a fight with his wife
about her always making chicken for dinner as an excuse to storm out of the house and go meet his would-be mistress. "I'm going out
of my finger-lickin' mind."

That's a recurring theme of "I Think I Love My Wife": the best parts of it are in the margins and overlooked in the movie's determination to keep the narrative ball rolling. Some of the best and potentially riches moments in the film are in passing exchanges between Richard and his wife about
what expressions of race and culture are or aren't appropriate in front of their children. But aside from generating a few funny lines, the movie just skims right
over them.

Likewise, the talented cast also goes mostly untapped. As the sexy Nikki, Washington burns
up the assumptions viewers who know her only as the long-suffering wife in "Ray" may have made. But the movie never bothers answering
or even acknowledging any of the obvious questions raised about her character, so sexy
is all we ever get. And why cast Steve Buscemi as Richard's office pal if you're not going to give him a chance to do anything but shake his head and cluck sympathetically?

There are some real, genuinely funny-insightful moments in this comedy about how denial can turn a good thing bad _ such
as when Richard realizes that Nikki has become "a friend I can't tell my wife about." But those moments only serve to highlight what could have been but isn't.

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