All bad movies of 1998 step aside, we have the worst film of the year: “Why Do Fools Fall in Love”! In his follow-up to “Selena,” Gregory Nava takes African-American cinema to a new low.
This is the story of Frankie Lymon (Larenz Tate) who, with the Teenagers, scored his first major musical hit with the title song. Frankie, unlucky at many things, died of a drug overdose at 26, leaving 3 wives (Halle Berry, Lela Rochon, Vivica A. Fox) who were not nearly as shocked by his death as they were at discovering each other. Hilarity doesn’t really ensue.
This bio-pic is soulless, underwritten, over-acted and, worse, just plain dull. It’s a TV drug addict movie-of-the-week crossed with the Jeffersons. Not even Little Richard playing himself can save this one… in fact, that’s even painful to watch at this point. If I wasn’t on a date, I would have walked out. Ugh. Where are the Hughes, the Hudlins or Carl Franklin (ok, wait, he’s releasing the mother-daughter melodrama, “One True Thing,” next month)? Can Don Cheadle direct? Someone help.
