Reviewed by

Christopher Armstead

Oh boy! That’s what I was thinking as I placed this movie ‘Single Black Female’ into the old DVD player, but in a good way. An African American version of ‘Single White Female’ seems like a can’t miss proposition if you ask me, and though you didn’t ask me I’m telling you anyway… can’t miss proposition. Wrong again my man. Wrong again.

Say hello to Karma played by the absolutely lovely Farrah Franklin who is one fine female specimen. Make no doubt about this son, the girl is fine. The fact of Karma’s fineness isn’t lost on Karma since the woman has pictures of herself plastered all over her plush Los Angeles crib. Say hello to Karma’s roommate who’s name I can’t remember who is also fine and also dead. Apparently she committed suicide because… well… who knows? A pair of cops come in and ask Karma and her brother Wes some stupid ass questions, solidifying themselves as possibly the worst cops in the history of low budget cinema, and then leave. I think I’ve watched enough ‘Forensic Files’ to know that the slightest bit of police work probably would’ve solved this case in about 18 seconds but what the hell, lets just roll with it.

The fact that this hottie killed herself does suck but what sucks worst is that Karma and her bro need a third body to fill that room to kick in on some rent which leads to Karma taking a shower and also leads to tantalizing shots of the back of Farrah Franklin’s nude neck. Better still we get watch even more tantalizing shots of Karma’s I-Mac which is in the bathroom waiting for her to finish her shower. Karma… girlfriend… stop taking your laptop into the shower with you or you will need a new I-Mac like every week. Apparently this laptop was in the shower so Karma won’t miss any instant messages from someone responding to her ad about a roommate which leads to a myriad of folks coming in for an interview. I believe this was supposed to be funny. It wasn’t. Eventually after a number of weirdos pass through, the seemingly normal Sky shows up. Sky is a white girl which I think was originally supposed to relevant in someway but ended up not being relevant at all. Roll with it. Big Brother Wes was checking out Sky as she passed by. Personally I was curious as to what exactly was Wes checking out considering Sky might weigh fifty pounds and has an ass that’s practically inverted.

Karma is simply a hard working girl hustling to be an R&B singer but this is becoming somewhat difficult because of her asshole boyfriend and this difficulty is further compounded by the fact that people have started to pop up dead all over the place. Not cool. The question, of course, is who is killing these people? Perhaps the white girl with the flat ass who wants Karma? Karma’s lesbian agent with a HUGE ass who wants Karma? Or Karma’s asshole boyfriend who doesn't want Karma? Or maybe even Karma’s XXXL brother who digs tiny white girls with flat asses? The truth will SHOCK YOU! Or not.

So I’m checking out the Wiki article on Farrah Franklin which pulls a quote from Beyonce saying that Destiny’s Child kicked my girl to the curb because she was missing concert dates and wasn’t all that interested in being in the group. After watching ‘Single Black Female’ I can’t imagine that to be true. That would mean that Farrah was steadily blowing off the opportunity to be in one of the biggest R&B groups of the decade but yet found a way to show up to this mess every day. Highly unlikely. Obviously Beyonce wasn’t comfortable having someone around who’s almost as fine as she is. That, of course, is just my theory.

But back to ‘Single Black Female’. The good thing about this movie is that almost all of the women in this movie are drop dead gorgeous. Even the skinny white girl with the flat ass is pretty damned good looking. That’s pretty much about it. The rest of the movie simply can’t get out of its own way. The sound fades in and out featuring that always favored loud hiss followed by deathly quiet, the acting is amateurish at best, the editing is almost non-existent and story is next to incomprehensible. Either the narrative didn’t have any idea what it wanted to be or they simply forgot what story they were supposed to tell. And wait until you get to the ‘twist’ ending. Outstanding.

Now this is a bit of a SPOILER but the cops at the end of the movie have determined that the big brother is responsible for all the murders, and without me telling you who was really doing the killing let me tell you that big brother was tied to a chair with a bullet hole to the chest last time we saw him. How these cops rationalized how my man managed to tie himself to a chair and then shoot himself in the chest is beyond me, but I guess that’s why they’re fake movie cops and I’m just some cat who watches a lot of bad movies on TV.

Sure ‘Single Black Female’ is one of the worst poorly made excuses for a movie I’ve ever seen but because of the fact it has so many fine women in it, all of whom tragically keep their clothes on – except for a completely gratuitous titty bar scene – we can’t throw it in the garbage completely. Or you could just subscribe to Black Men Magazine or Giant. Yeah, maybe you should just do that instead.