Guess Who Genre: Comedy Rated: PG-13 Directed by: Kevin Rodney Sullivan Produced by: Jenno Topping, Erwin Stoff, Jason Goldberg Starring: BERNIE MAC, ASHTON KUTCHER, ZOE SALDANA, JUDITH SCOTT Released by: Columbia Pictures and Regency Enterprises In Short: Viewers get punked in this predictable, unfunny rehash of 1967’s "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner."

Knock, Knock, Who's There?
A Quagmire of Played Out Racial Stereotypes
By Cherie Saunders

This race-reversed remake of 1967’s "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner" stars Bernie Mac as headstrong African American father Percy Jones, and Ashton Kutcher as Simon Green, the last man Percy expects his daughter Theresa (Zoe Saldana) to bring home. Before meeting Simon, Percy—a loan officer—decides to run a credit check on the guy to make sure he’s good enough for his baby girl, who has a track record of dating broke losers. On paper, everything about Simon looks promising—a lucrative job as a stockbroker, great investments, rock-solid future. But when Simon shows up in person and is—gasp—white, Percy is taken aback. It turns out that Simon’s lack of melanin is one of many issues Percy has with the young man, who agrees to meet Theresa’s parents just as he quits his successful stockbroker gig—a fact that he keeps from Theresa and her family during his weekend at Percy’s house.

Before that secret comes back to haunt him, "Guess Who" falls into a quagmire of stale, played out racial stereotypes that cause more groans than laughs. The practice goes overboard in an implausible dinner scene, where Percy forces Simon to recite a string of anti-black jokes to prove that he’s not as uptight about race as folks would believe. Of course, you can see the backfire coming as one of the jokes inevitably goes too far.

"Guess Who" is full of these predictable devices and awkward moments, which may have actually been funny had they not been used before in countless other fish-out-of-water comedies with race as an undercurrent.