Strictly Business (1991)    Warner Bros./Comedy    RT: 83 minutes    Rated PG-13 (language, sexual content)    Director: Kevin Hooks    Screenplay: Pam Gibson and Nelson George    Music: Michel Colombier    Cinematography: Zoltan David    Release date: November 8, 1991 (US)    Cast: Tommy Davidson, Joseph C. Phillips, Halle Berry, Anne-Marie Johnson, David Marshall Grant, Jon Cypher, Samuel L. Jackson, Kim Coles, Paul Butler, James McDaniel, Paul Provenza, Annie Golden, Sam Rockwell, Ira Wheeler.    Box Office: $7.6M (US)

Rating: ***

 I can’t confirm it since I found only one review on-line, but I’ll venture that a lot of critics tried to ascribe social relevance to the Kevin Hooks-directed comedy Strictly Business by saying it’s a commentary on racial perceptions in the white-dominated corporate world. I’ll grant that it makes a few observations, but I doubt Hooks (Passenger 57) had such lofty aspirations. Maybe he just wanted to make audiences laugh with his story of a young mailroom clerk trying to get his foot in the door in the world of big business. In that respect, it resembles The Secret of My Success.

 Tommy Davidson (In Living Color) plays Bobby, a fun-loving type who works in the mailroom at a huge real estate firm by day and parties all night at different clubs. He tries to get his friend Waymon Tinsdale III (Phillips, The Cosby Show), a young, uptight executive trying to make partner, to put him in the company’s trainee program to no avail. Presently, Waymon is preoccupied with closing a big deal that will definitely make him a shoo-in for partner. In addition, he’s trapped in an unhappy relationship with bitchy control freak Diedre (Johnson, TV’s In the Heat of the Night) who only stays with him because they “make a good team”.

 Waymon’s whole world changes the day he first sees Natalie (Berry, The Last Boy Scout), a gorgeous woman who works as a club promoter and dreams of owning her own club one day. He’s instantly smitten with her. When he learns Bobby knows her, he asks him to make an introduction. He agrees to do it provided Waymon puts him in the trainee program. The only real obstacle, as Bobby sees it, is that Waymon isn’t black enough. He tells him that he’s “straight up whiter than the whitest white man” and he’s not wrong. Waymon’s never even been to Harlem. He’s about to get a lesson in code-switching.

 Movies like this always need a villain, preferably a white one. Hooks gives us one in the form of David (Grant, American Flyers), a cocky and racist yuppie looking to screw Waymon over by sabotaging his deal. You know from first glance that the guy is a creep.

 Strictly Business reminds me of the black comedies they used to make in the 70s. It’s light, breezy, funky and funny. At the heart of it is a sweet love story in which an uptight dude learns to lighten up through loving a fun, free-spirited woman who’s actually nice to him. The storyline is predictable right down to the not-unexpected happy ending, but it works. However, I find it curious that the movie runs only 83 minutes. What could they have left on the cutting room floor? I guess it doesn’t matter since it’s so enjoyable as is.

 This is one of Berry’s first movies and you can see why she became a star. She’s talented, appealing and beautiful. Phillips is a bit stiff but likable. He does a decent job with his role. Davidson is a funny guy; he gets all the best lines. The topper has to be when he calls Diedre “teenage mutant Negro chicken legs”. Although I can see Richard Pryor playing this role in the 70s, Davidson doesn’t copy his comedic style. He makes it his own. Despite her role bordering on misogyny, Johnson does a great job as a mean, horrible girlfriend. Grant is suitably slimy as the kind of co-worker who, like Basquiat with graffiti, turns back-stabbing into an art form.

 I don’t normally like hip-hop, but it’s exactly the right music for Strictly Business much in the same way funky R&B defined 70s blaxploitation flicks. Hooks gets a lot right in his debut feature film. So what if it doesn’t have much in the way of depth? Not every movie has to make some grand statement about some big social ill. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with a good-natured movie whose sole purpose of existence is to make audiences laugh. I laughed a lot during Strictly Business. It’s an entertaining movie, a good choice for when you want something light that doesn’t require a lot of brain power.