National Security

Imagine a movie that throws every racist black joke cliche you could ever think about into an 88 minute movie. Then imagine that it is recycled every few minutes. National Security is a comedy that is not only unfunny, but is also unoriginal, full with cliches, and downright pointless.

The movie centers around Earl Montgomery (Martin Lawrence), a security officer, and Hank Rafferty (Steve Zahn) an ex-police officer who turns security officer after what seems to be a phony Rodney King beating. Now, this is where the movie starts to go wrong. It takes the typical black/white man stereotype and turns it into a cop movie that dares to enter where no one has gone before- make consistent black jokes from a black guy. Don't get me wrong, I'm not using black in a derogatory way, but merely to point out that these "African-American" or so called black jokes are unfunny and dull.

Later, the two somehow stumble upon a plot to take a precious metal-alloy that will make a crooked cop and some other thiefs rich. By coincidence, this group is also responsible for Hank's partners death. Because of this, Hank goes to revenge his partner.

What makes this movie even worse is it's seemingly full of holes. For instance, it dramatizes the court scene to make it seem important, but then puts an almost all African-American jury in as if it is somehow funny. Even Hank isn't given a fair trial. Moments of this movie center around police brutality and equality, something this movie doesn't care to resolve at all.

I laughed no much in this movie... no wait that was another movie. In this movie I laughed only once. It seems that 95% of the jokes were race related and after the first 10 minutes of the movie, no fresh material was ever given. In fact, all the jokes were told by Lawrence, who seems to have sold himself out on this movie. His 20 million dollar contract seems laughable at best for such a poor movie.

This movie could have been replaced with stick figures and I would have been just as delighted.

2/10