When Bad Movies Happen To Good Casts: B.A.P.S.

Halle Berry is America's sweetheart. She's won an Oscar. She's made lots of money. She's finally found love and had a child. She's been universally upheld as a standard bearer of beauty, ethnic or otherwise.

And she's done all this, in spite of having made some truly sh*tty movies.

No movie better illustrates the hit-or-miss nature of her career than 1997's B.A.P.S., a movie I actually did pay to see. It's a decision I regret to this day. Those were 30 precious dollars and 91 minutes I'll never, evar get back.

B.A.P.S. (short for Black American Princesses) starred Berry as a hardly believable stereotypical ghetto girl named Starkeyshia Nisi. Nisi and her cousin Mickey have dreams of getting rich and opening their own ghetto hair salon, but to make money, they take jobs as a caretakers for an elderly Beverly Hills playboy.

Much like the Fat Boys' 1987 star vehicle Disorderlies, B.A.P.S. is a fish out of water with a blind ulterior motive story. In Disorderlies, The Fat Boys were a bungling trio of aspiring rappers hired to provide medical care for an aging millionaire, whose nephew secretly wants the orderlies to kill the old man so he can inherit his fortune. Despite the silly premise, Disorderlies was actually a pretty funny movie.

B.A.P.S. on the other hand? Uhh, not so much. Seriously, watch the trailer and wince.



And just in case you wanna subject yourself to more torture, here's a classic scene.



Since the only real "names" in this movie were Halle and Martin Landau, you could argue that this one doesn't really qualify was a WBMHTGC candidate, and you'd prolly be right. But I wasn't gonna waste any valuable bandwidth on Bulworth, so sorry.

This was definitely one of those special "man, even the opening credits suck, can I still get my money back?" types of godawful flicks that only comes around once every 3-4 months. Pooty Tang, Celtic Pride, and anything starring Bokeem Woodbine would also qualify.

It all sorta kinda makes you wonder why many consider Berry a great actress in the first place. Sure, she was good in Boomerang, Queen, and Losing Isaiah. But what about The Flintstones? Catwoman? Gothika? The Rich Man's Wife? Arghhh.

I'm not saying she's overrated, but she's got a little bit of T-Mac goin' on there.

Or maybe it's just me.

Question: Is Halle Berry a bit overrated? What's your favorite Halle flick, assuming such a thing exists? Do you think she deserved that Oscar for Monster's Ball?

B.A.P.S. on Yahoo! Movies

More of When Bad Movies Happen To Good Casts [AB.com]