I said about the movie "Boomerang" that it was Eddie Murphy's wet dream. Well, "A Thin Line Between Love and Hate" is Martin Lawrence's wet dream. At least in "Boomerang" Eddie Murphy used tact and sophisticated schemes to bed women. In "A Thin Line" Martin Lawrence uses gangsta mack tactics that apparently work.
Martin Lawrence plays Darnell Wright, a manager of a popular nightclub called Chocolate City. He is a shameless womanizer who's juggling four to five women while his homies in his sphere can only gawk at his conquests with mouths agape. Although these women mean nothing to him--which they are probably aware of--they steadily cling to him like dryer sheets.
His entire harem would be overshadowed by a wealthy elegant woman named Brandi Web (Lynn Whitfield). He would do any and everything to "hit it;" including breaking his hard and fast rule of not saying "I love you" to a chick. Except this woman, unlike the rest, was not going to put up with any other females hanging around.
Along with being a simple and razor thin plot, Lawrence makes it seem like the worst thing that could happen to a "player" is that a woman gets too attached. It is actually rather conceited to think that his blessing is also his curse. He put a charm on a woman so strong that she wouldn't let him go. Yes, there's a sub-message of settling down with a good woman, but the pervasive message is don't break your player rules when pursuing a female because she might be crazy.
Since we're already entrenched in Martin's dream let's go all the way. Darnell was putting on a full court press to get Brandi in the sack. When she rebuffed him one too many times (you know it can't be too easy) he all but said, "Either let me hit it or get lost." And she fell for it! Like she had to be treated like a dog to realize she wanted him.
Martin Lawrence's nocturnal emission dream only got better for him. Eventually, he was able to pivot off of Brandi and get in tight with his real crush, Mia (Regina King). This girl, though, he would treat right. He dropped all his other side pieces for her; including Brandi. And even though Mia knew Darnell to be a lying, cheating, womanizer, somehow she felt as though he was honest with her. It was nothing for her to compete against all his other ladies. It is Martin's dream scenario after all, so of course he got the girl.
Naturally, Brandi didn't take too kindly to being dropped, so that's when she went Glen Close on him, which was laughable; because after all we had just witnessed, somehow Darnell was the victim in all this!?! Brandi was the psycho (which she was) while Darnell was just this innocent victim. As if Brandi should've known the game so there was no need to be a sore loser. He even said, "There's no need to kill a n---- over this."
Yes, Darnell, you're right, you shouldn't be killed over this. But is that really your fall back argument after treating a woman like garbage? If Don Corleone was going to kill you for not paying your debt are you saying, "There's no need to kill me over this." No, because you know that even though it's not right, people get killed all the time for wronging other people.
At the end of Martin's dream he got a few flesh wounds, Brandi was locked up, and his girlfriend was there when he woke up in the hospital. Dream over now he can change his sheets.
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