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Mixed or average reviews - based on 26 Critics What's this?

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Mixed or average reviews- based on 20 Ratings

  • Starring: Common, Paula Patton, Queen Latifah
  • Summary: Just Wright revolves around a sports trainer who finds herself falling in love with a professional basketball player while rehabilitating him from a career threatening injury. Things are further complicated because her closest friend is also pursuing him. (Fox Searchlight Pictures)
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 10 out of 26
  2. Negative: 5 out of 26
  1. 75
    Here Common isn't called upon to do much heavy lifting in the acting department, but he plays well with Queen Latifah. Sure, the movie is a formula. A formula that works reminds us of why it became a formula.
  2. A formulaic sports romance with the texture of a strawberry smoothie.
  3. The chemistry between the leads is more cozy than sexy, but the biggest issue is Latifah's noticeable - and admirable - discomfort with the rom-com clichés found throughout Michael Elliot's screenplay.
  4. 38
    It's light in tone, feather-weight. But there aren't many laughs in it.

See all 26 Critic Reviews

Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 3 out of 6
  2. Negative: 2 out of 6
  1. JoC.
    9
    I LOVED this movie!!!! And will purchase it when it comes out on DVD... I don't know what movie the other critics were watching but the movie was FAB. I enjoyed every minute of it. I really wish that the (so called critics) giving their "opinion" about entertainment get a clue. Giving this movie a bad wrap because of the love triangle whatever....IT'S ENTERTAINMENT!!!! IT'S A MOVIE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!...GET OVER YOURSELF. Expand
  2. Chapel
    8
    Yes it's predictable, however I found it quite charming. I loved Queen Latifa and Common.
  3. Just caught this one on cable - it's a sweet movie. Common is excellent - haven't seen him in anything previously, and Queen Latifa awesome as usual. The god sister plays her role with too little nuance, and the "real" NBA players are fun but can't act. It was good enough to keep this NBA fan watching while the Pacers/Bulls first round game was happening. That says something. Expand
  4. 4
    This review contains spoilers. After going an NBA league-worst 12-70(38 games behind the Atlantic Division-winning Boston Celtics), the New Jersey Nets surely could go for the services of a perennial all-star talent such as Scott McKnight(to be fair, Devin Harris is a decent floor general), since the woeful franchise often played as if Pisces' astrologist Mona Mondieu(Stockard Channing from Gilbert Moses' "The Fish That Saved Pittsburgh") and Cadwaller University head coach David Greene(Gabe Kaplan from Jack Smight's "Fast Break") were guiding this hapless bunch from the bench. In "Just Wright", the Nets lose McKnight to injury during the regular season, but they still make the playoffs, and are one game away from winning the Eastern Conference, when the supposedly indispensable baller makes his triumphant comeback. To a seasoned sports fan, this plot point comes off as a bit anti-climactic, since the Nets were apparently managing just fine without their top player. It's a scenario that recalls Jameer Nelson's return to the Orlando Magic in Game 4 of last year's NBA Finals against the Los Angeles Lakers(boo! hiss!), in which the Amway-owned team learned to live without the St. Joseph's standout. Unlike McKnight, who holds his own against the Miami Heat's Dwayne Wade, Nelson was a step slow, obviously not in game shape, and couldn't keep up with the much older Derek Fisher(more boos! more hisses!). Orlando lost the game, and the game after that, as Los Angeles took the series four games-to-one. "Just Wright" is more interesting as a love story than a sports movie, so the big game feels more obligatory than usual, as does the big emotional payoff. Leslie(Queen Latifah) will go on loving Scott(Common), even when his career is over, unlike Morgan(Paula Patton), who drops the star athlete when he suffers that potentially career-ending injury. It's hard to believe that Scott would go back to Morgan after she had bailed on him, and even worse, Leslie takes him back after he realizes his horrible mistake. "Just Wright" truly loses its credibility when Morgan's character is redeemed, as if out of guilt for vilifying the gold-digger, since the film shares her proclivity to exalt fame and fortune at all costs. Doesn't the filmmaker realize how much more touching the movie would be if everybody didn't get exactly what they wanted? Collapse

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