Just Wright

Directed by Sanaa Hamri. Starring Queen Latifah, Common, Paula Patton, Phylicia Rashad, Pam Grier PG cert, lim release, 100 min

WHAT IS the point of flying this thing across the Atlantic? Queen Latifah has some currency – though not as much as she deserves – in these territories, but nobody here is going to pay good money to see a romcom concerning the discontents of the New Jersey Nets. (It’s a basketball team, apparently.)

The film is not entirely terrible. Her Majesty plays Leslie, a cheery physiotherapist who lives in a lower middle-class area of the Garden State with her amiable parents and her best friend, Morgan (Paula Patton). Leslie livesfor the Nets. She has an encyclopaedic knowledge of basketball history and wears her team jersey like a second skin. The slim, primped Morgan, however, has ambitions to become a basketball Wag.

Morgan’s current obsession is a successful player named Scott (rapper Common in a performance of notable woodenness). When, after an accidental encounter at a gas station, Leslie gets an invitation to Scott’s birthday party, her cynical pal begins plotting her assault on the prize. Before long, the two are engaged. Did we mention that Leslie is a physiotherapist? Sure enough, when Scott gets injured – and a selfish Morgan stomps out — our heroine is drafted in to massage the affected area.

You can't deny that Just Wrighthas a heart of gold. After all, this is an entertainment in which a top sports star (I'm sure we're not spoiling anything) eventually inclines towards a blue-collar tomboy rather than a glossy clothes-horse. Queen Latifah is, as ever, just about charming enough to sell you this unlikely scenario, but the escalating sentimentality and sluggishness of the narrative renders it close to indigestible.

It also has just about the worst title of the year. Her character is called Leslie Wright. Just Wright? Get it? Please try harder.