Big Momma's House (2000)

User Rating:

4.7/10   

Director:

Raja Gosnell

Writers (WGA):

Darryl Quarles (story)
Darryl Quarles (screenplay) ...

Release Date:

2 June 2000 (USA)

Genre:

Action | Comedy | Crime

Tagline:

This FBI agent is going undercover... and he's concealing more than a weapon.

Plot:

An FBI agent disguises himself as an old lady to protect a beautiful federal witness and her son.

Plot Keywords:

Disguise | FBI | Southern | Undercover | Church

Awards:

1 win & 8 nominations

Cast

Martin Lawrence	...	Malcolm Turner
Nia Long	...	Sherry Pierce
Paul Giamatti	...	John
Jascha Washington	...	Trent Pierce
Terrence Howard	...	Lester Vesco (as Terrence Dashon Howard)
Anthony Anderson	...	Nolan
Ella Mitchell	...	Hattie Mae Pierce (Big Momma)
Carl Wright	...	Ben Rawley
Phyllis Applegate	...	Sadie
Starletta DuPois	...	Miss Patterson
Jessie Mae Holmes	...	Miss Other Patterson
Nicole Prescott	...	Lena
Octavia Spencer	...	Twila (as Octavia L. Spencer)
Tichina Arnold	...	Ritha
Cedric the Entertainer	...	Reverend

Also Known As:

Big Mamas Haus (Germany)

MPAA:

Rated PG-13 for crude humor including sexual innuendo, and for language and some violence.

Runtime:

98 min

Country:

USA | Germany

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Certification:

Malaysia:18SX | Argentina:13 | Australia:M | Canada:PG | Finland:K-12/9 | France:U | Germany:6 | Hong Kong:IIB | Mexico:B | Netherlands:12 | New Zealand:M | Norway:11 | Peru:14 | Portugal:M/12 | Singapore:NC-16 (DVD rating) | Singapore:PG (original rating) | South Korea:12 | Spain:T | Sweden:7 | Switzerland:10 (canton of Geneva) | Switzerland:10 (canton of Vaud) | UK:12 (cut) | USA:PG-13 (certificate #37509) | Iceland:L

Filming Locations:

Chapman University - One University Drive, Orange, California, USA

Company:

Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation

Trivia:

Screenwriter Darryl Quarles came up with the idea for the name "Big Momma" because it was what the neighborhood kids used to call his own real life mother.

Goofs:

Revealing mistakes: After Malcolm is done delivering Rita's baby, there are no tools and there is not enough time to cut the umbilical cord, which obviously has been cut.

Quotes:

John: I'm a married man, I'm not used to this much attention.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in "The Office: Weight Loss (#5.1)" (2008)

Soundtrack:

Big Momma's Theme

Good, but not as good as it could have been with some radical revisions

The biggest problem with Big Momma's house is that you can often see just how funny it should be, but the cast and crew are not able to sustain the occasional hilarious parts with any consistency.

It doesn't seem to help that Big Momma's House wants to be more than a comedy. Writers Darryl Quarles and Don Rhymer shoot for a combination of a crime comedy ala Beverly Hills Cop (1984) and a romantic comedy. But the core comedy is absurdist, while the mostly serious crime stuff is so underwritten that it would be better absent, and the somewhat serious rom-com stuff is so generic and predictable that it has all the surprise of attending Mass.

To me, the comedy being absurdist is a plus, but it doesn't mesh well with other modes. It's ridiculous, of course, that Malcolm Turner (Martin Lawrence) is trying to pass himself off as "Big Momma" Hattie Mae Pierce (Ella Mitchell). That's a large part of what makes it funny. However, director Raja Gosnell's decision to play the rest of the cast as mostly deadpan is a strange one. It leads the viewer to take the film in a more realist mode, but if you're doing that, you keep asking yourself why anyone else would believe that Turner is actually Big Momma. Gosnell should have gone for another approach during the Turner as Big Momma scenes. It's not that they're never funny, but too often the deadpan interaction breaks the humor.

However, the deadpan attitude works wonders when Mitchell is Big Momma. Mitchell is a fantastic here as a comic actress and especially Paul Giamatti as John is hilarious interacting with her. Once those too-brief scenes ended, I was wishing they wouldn't have, and when they reappeared again at the end, it made me more fully realize how much better they were. A whole film could have and should have been written around Mitchell as Big Momma with Giamatti and Lawrence interacting with her and beautiful co-star Nia Long via some other story.

Even with these problems, Big Momma is an enjoyable film. My wife enjoyed it even more than I did, we're looking forward to watching Big Momma's House 2, and we'll certainly watch this again in the future. But it's a case of moments of brilliance poking through so that you see just how much better it could have been.