Our Family Wedding

Lucia (Ugly Betty‘s America Ferrera) is Mexican-American. Her fiancé, Marcus (House of Payne‘s Lance Gross), is African-American. And Our Family Wedding is Hollywood-ethno-American. Which means that if you sign on for this broad, bawdy comedy of matrimony, set in a magical Los Angeles of much sunshine and little traffic, be prepared to swallow a lot of empty-calorie jokes in which blacks and Latinos insult and misunderstand one another in a spirit of vigorous buffoonery before dancing together in maniacal harmony during the never-in-doubt wedding-scene finale. Chief among the maniacs are comedian Carlos Mencia as Lucia’s papa (a traditionalist family guy) and Forest Whitaker as Marcus’ old man (a divorced, swinging radio DJ). As if to reassure Mencia that he wouldn’t be stuck playing the craziest role in the bunch, well-loved character mujer Lupe Ontiveros (who costarred with Ferrera in her breakthrough Real Women Have Curves) shows up as Lucia’s opinionated grandmother. When Granny first meets Marcus, she falls into a racially induced dead faint. At least she doesn’t groan ”Ay caramba!” as she swoons. C-

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