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Taken on its own terms as a big-screen sitcom, Guess Who offers plenty of
humor with just enough social commentary to make its point without being
preachy. Of course, we`ve come along way since interracial romance was
such a hot-button issue in Stanley Kramer`s earnest 1967 drama Guess
Who`s Coming To Dinner, and nobody`s going to mistake Ashton Kutcher
and Bernie Mac (in this updated semi-remake) with the original film`s Sidney
Poitier and Spencer Tracy. And that`s fine, because Guess Who--from the
director of Barbershop 2--doesn`t pretend to be anything more than a slick,
entertaining vehicle for domestic farce with the racial roles reversed.
Kutcher`s romance with an African-American beauty (Zoë Sandaña) causes
sparks to fly when he`s introduced to her father (Bernie Mac). What ensues
is basically an interracial buddy comedy that`s as uninspired as it is easy to
watch, and there`s a dinner-table scene that`s refreshingly provocative in
this movie`s otherwise tamely cautious context. We can all be thankful that
humanity has matured a little since the racial tensions of the late `60s, but
Hollywood`s progress (and Kutcher`s career) remains subject to debate.