The Brothers

Four friends meet regularly, play a little basketball, go to a club afterwards. The conversation is one-tracked - girls. Can't live with 'em, can't live without 'em. One goes to therapy and whines about it. "I broke up with three women in three weeks. And that's not cool."

While the guys are having crises of commitment, the gals are getting together and debating the same subject from a feminist angle. Sex is appreciated up to a point, but there are other considerations, too. Love matters, if they can believe it, but ultimately "a man only needs three things and two of them are money."

For once, this is not set in Bret Easton Ellis territory. Strictly middle-class, these are young black professionals on the cusp of 30. They could have walked of the sound stage of a Spike Lee movie, except the dialogue's not sharp enough.

Essentially a talkie, with sexual battle scars, Gary Hardwick's film isn't daring enough. The girls have the Janet Jackson look, blending too neatly as one. The fellas are distinctly different, from the vain doctor to the self-deprecating lawyer, which makes them more interesting, although not enough.

The women know they're in control because what they have the guys think about all the time. When the guys get enough of what they have, they fall asleep, or run scared.

"Men don't know what they want until they chose the woman they want," the wise mother says.

Is it wise, blindly arrogant or self deceiving? It's a movie and it doesn't tell you anything you didn't know, except the myth of the black stud may be just that - a myth.