Rating: 
Summary: Painfully unfunny
Review: What happened to Steve Martin? He is a comic genius with more all-time classic movies on his resume than virtually anyone else could hope for. "All of Me," "The Jerk," "Roxanne"--the man has done a lot of great work across a wide range of comedic styles. And Queen Latifah is talented and likable. Witness the sadly-ignored "Set it Off," which is a much better movie than you might expect, and which really showed that Queen Latifah had great potential as an actress.Martin and Latifah deserved a chance to do a good movie together. They could have pulled off a decent movie from a mediocre script. But instead, this is the movie you get when you take Steve Martin's lawyer character from "All of Me," suck all of the character and life out of him, and plug him into "Housesitter" with Queen Latifah as Goldie Hawn. There's even a rich old client, like in "All of Me." You get the feeling you've seen better versions of this movie before, and you're right. We all know the gag from the commercials. Steve Martin thinks he's meeting some thin white lawyer for an internet date, but instead Queen Latifah shows up at his front door. Comedy theoretically ensues. But the movie takes its sweet time getting to this first surprise, even though we the audience know it's coming. And in that interval, man, do they lay on the exposition. Layer after layer of trite TV-movie exposition, written in such a way as to show you the path the movie is going to follow as to every single character. Even after Queen Latifah shows up, the exposition just keeps on coming, and coming, and coming. When it stops, you are hoping comedy might ensue, but it just doesn't. In the first 30 minutes of this movie, there are a few amusing moments, and two occasions where you might actually chuckle out loud. That is a pathetic laugh ratio for any comedy, and it is unforgivable given that a truly awful script has dragged two great performers to that level. You know the comedies where you see the preview on TV and there are 3 or 4 funny clips, and you get to the movie, and those are the only 3 or 4 funny things in it? This is one of those comedies.
Rating: 
Summary: Tired, Predictable Comedy
Review: Peter Sanderson (Steve Martin) is a divorced, straight-laced, uptight tax attorney who still loves his ex-wife and can't figure out what he did wrong to make her leave him. However, Peter's trying to move on and he's smitten with a brainy, barrister he's been chatting with online. However, when she comes to his house for their first face-to-face, she isn't refined, isn't Ivy League, and isn't even a lawyer. Instead, it's Charlene Morton (Queen Latifah), a prison escapee who's proclaiming her innocence and wants Peter to help her clear her name. But Peter wants nothing to do with her, prompting the loud and shocking Charlene to turn Peter's perfectly ordered life upside down, jeopardizing his effort to get back with his wife and woo a billion dollar client. While racial overtones play a considerable part of the film's humor, Martin and Latifah's warmth and humor still win out and offer some laugh out loud comedy. Eugene Levy appears as Martin's lawyer friend who becomes infatuated with Latifah. If it hadn't been for Queen Latifah, this movie would have been really awful.
Rating: 
Summary: Tired of the hip black teaching whitey movie but...
Review: I got to say, the movie was funny. Latifah is a trip. So just because she was in this movie, I give it 4 stars.
Rating:
Summary: Starts funny, ends dissapointing
Review: Steve Martin is a conservative white divorcee tax attorney who has struck up an e-mail friendship with a woman he thinks is a glamorous blonde lawyer, but who turns out to be a black ex-convict, Queen Latifya(I'd never even heard of her until I saw this movie, but she is very funny). She tries to persuade him to help her prove her innocence, but he doesn't want to have anything to do with her, so she devises a series of schemes to change his mind. The first half of the film is very funny, but the second half flags a bit, though it is enlivened by Joan Plowright as a preposterously bigoted uptight wealthy old cow. I thought Steve Martin and Queen Latifya were going to get it together, but no he prefers to go back to his insipid blonde ex-wife, which I found a huge dissapointment. The film would have been much more fun if he had ended up with the Queen.
Rating: 
Summary: Funniest Movie!
Review: This movie is very funny and one of my favorites! Filled with lots of laughs!
Rating:
Summary: OK Film Elevated By It's Stars...
Review: With it's "Odd Couple" plot, Bringing Down the House would be right at home on TV: Lawyer Peter Sanderson (Steve Martin) sets up a date with the female Lawyer he's been talking to on-line in a Lawyer chatroom. Surprise! It's not a gorgeous blonde lagal-eagle, it's a sassy, fresh-from-the-big-house Charlene Morton (Queen Latifah), who hopes to use Sanderson to get her conviction on armed robbery charges overturned. Charlene winds up blackmailing Peter into letting her live with him while he works on her case, and before you can say "You've got me straight trippin', Boo!" she's insinuated herself into every aspect of his life... Anyone with even a passing familiarity with film & TV cliches has been here and done this before. The saving grace of Bringing Down the House is the winning performances of it's Actors: Martin and Latifah have great chemistry together; You can see they were having a good time making this film. The supporting cast is uniformly excellent, especially Eugene Levy as Martin's friend (Who becomes smitten with the straight-talking Charlene), and Joan Plowright, as the Heiress with the weird looking dog that Martin needs to impress. (Just try to keep a straight face when Plowright tries to get Latifah to sing a "Negro Spiritual" with her....). It's too bad that every comedy seems to feel the need to have a crime-subplot/action ending, though....The characters here are strong enough that they didn't need that type of cliche. I didn't get any huge laughs out of the film, but I did have a smile on my face the whole time...
Rating:
Summary: A surprising film
Review: Having accidentally stumbled across this film while channel surfing, I was just about to change the channel when I began laughing at Queen Latifah's comic genius. This is not ordinarily a film I'd watch: It's got way too much noisy rap, too much overt sex, rotten language and far too much glamorization of criminals and hoodlums, but I found it laugh-out-loud funny in places. The actors, all of them including the kids, are exceptionally good. Visually, the slapstick is far above average. QL is a beautiful, fine actress who steals everything she's in, this film being no exception. If for no other reason than to watch her steal this film, buy it.
Rating:
Summary: Steve Martin brings down the house!
Review: This movie is a reverse "My Fair Lady"! The story line in this film seems rountine, but Martin is really the reason to watch this film. His transformation from a civil and proper lawyer to a home boy from the 'hood had me in stitches! Eugene Levy is good in a supporting role and so is Queen Latifah. Give this movie a chance!
Rating:
Summary: Father of the Bride meets THE QUEEN!!!
Review: This is a funny movie. Steve Martin and Queen Latifah and an Excellent supporting cast make this one of the best comedic movies of 2003. Steve Martin plays a Dad with three kids, divorced, a tax lawyer in an upscale WASP community who gets his life "shaken and stirred" by a runaway yet innocent convict portrayed by Queen Latifah. His life is never the same afterwards as he has to "broaden" his mind and lifestyle due to Queen Latifah invading his home, life, friends, and work. At first of course things don't go well at all for either of them. Latifah is on the run from the Police for a crime she didn't commit and Martin has a safe yet "boring" life where his work comes first in front of his kids. Eugene Levy is HILLARIOUS as Martin's best friend who has fallen for the QUEEN. His "slang" truely is laugh out loud funny and he almost steals the movie. Missi Pyle is the obnoxious ex-sister in law to Martin and the fight scene between her and Latifah is fantastic! I won't spoil the plot and ending but let's just say that the ending is "all good" and the almighty QUEEN Latifah has me "straight trippin"!! Recommended!!
Rating:
Summary: Sweet and funny comedy
Review: Steve Martin plays Peter, a tax lawyer, divorced with two kids. He starts chatting on the internet with Charlene who he believes to be a young female lawyer but gets the surprise of his life when she turns up on his doorstep in the form of Queen Latifah. Charlene is in fact an innocent escaped convict who wants Peter to help her clear her name of an armed robbery for which she was framed. Peter's life is turned upside down when she moves herself into his home and into his life, upsetting his normal humdrum life and work. The excellent Joan Plowright plays Mrs Arness an important client that Peter's firm is trying to persuade to sign an important contract. The very funny Eugene Levy plays Peter's colleague and friend who falls for the curvy Charlene. This is a very sweet and funny film and had me laughing out loud trying to decipher Charlene's unique lingo. Steve Martin is as always very funny but Eugene Levy is even funnier. This is a great film to lift your spirits and put a smile on your face. Lealing
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