Reviewed by

Christopher Armstead

One would think that Rick (Christian Keyes) would be having a great life right now. The dude is young, decent looking, has a great job, a nice crib and drives a Land Rover. But sadly for poor Rick he spends his nights all alone with no one to call his own. That’s the main thing you’re going to have to swallow in this comedy ‘Perfect Combination’ that this well to do, good looking cat with nice clothes and a fresh ride can’t find a woman. Any woman. In Los Angeles. I’m poor, ugly, shop at the Goodwill and drive a Kia and I don’t have any of those problems so I had a hard time getting past that, but I did eventually and was able to sit back and enjoy this movie. Kind of.

Rick usually spends his evenings with his three best friends who consist of the henpecked lover of snow (white women) Jamal (Ayo Sorrells), Mr. Funnyman Eric (Kareem J. Grimes) and the hot saucy sisterly type Lia (Tiffany Hines). These four go out, drink, party, insult each other and support each other when Rick informs them that he needs a woman like three yesterdays ago since he’s about to turn thirty and all.

Again, this probably shouldn’t be all that difficult for the brother but the movie does set up Rick as one having a suspect game so we buy into it. To facilitate this acquisition of female companionship Rick enlists the help of a local dating agency run by Mrs. Lewis (Debra Wilson) and her niece Alex (Angell Conwell) who proceeds to send Rick on a series of disastrous dates with a bevy women who, true enough, are all crazy beautiful but are also crazy crazy.

Now what is Rick gonna do? Is it possible that love is right in front of Rick in the form of his defacto sister? I know that sounds nasty but it could happen. Our perhaps love is in the form of the Alex the assistant at the dating agency. The woman does a have certain set of gifts which make her more than worthy of loves possibilities. So will Rick find love? Who knows because this movie kind of leaves us hanging on that answer.

‘Frustrating’ would be the best answer I could dream up to describe ‘Perfect Combination’. ‘Perfect Combination’, in case you might not know, is a Johnny Gill song with Gill showing up in a cameo to sing a couple of bars for us. But the reason that ‘Perfect Combination was frustrating was because there were a lot of good things in this movie that made it watchable and it was funny, but… man… there were some story elements in the movie that needed to be cut out or trimmed or tightened or something that would’ve went a long way in making this movie a low budget classic. Instead what we have is fractured, watchable movie with some funny stuff in it.

The main thing this movie had going for it was that pretty much every single cast member brought their A-games in this movie and they all seemed to be having a good time in this film. Christian Keyes was a solid leading man, Tiffany Hines is a talented comedic actress on top of being real easy to look at, Kareem Grimes and Ayo Sorrels provided solid comic support and Debra Wilson has been killing people for years. Even the small parts such as the quick dating sequences were well performed and were also very funny for the most part despite the fact that is something that has been done in movies such as this ad infinitum.

Some of the stuff that follows is SPOILER material but what the movie probably really needed was tighter edit. There were conversations between characters and certain scenes that went on way too long and ultimately went nowhere. Then there was very odd love scene between the character of Rick and his defacto little sister Lia which involved them making out in a shower, buck-ass naked, rubbing up on each other, waking up naked next to each other, but not having sex? Forgive me for thinking that to be a little unreasonable. They could’ve cut out that whole scene and saved a few minutes.

But probably the most confusing part was the end of the movie which didn’t end with our hero hooking up with love, though it was inferred this could possibly happen in the future, but instead ended at his birthday lighting the candles of the world’s worst birthday cake. Actually the cake itself wasn’t so bad but considering there were like a hundred people at this party that cake would only feed two of them, at best. The producers really needed to go down to Costco and spring for a bigger cake. Anyway, movies like this aren’t supposed to end with the audience inferring but instead with two people kissing, proclaiming unnatural enduring love for each other and watching the credits roll. That’s just the way these things are supposed to go.

Like I said ‘Perfect Combination’ had the potential to be good with its solid performances and some really funny scenes despite the formulaic storyline. A few amateurish flaws and a loose edit where the only things holding it back.