By: debbie lynn elias
All I can say is it’s about time that men got their own comeuppance! For generations, tales have been told about women being gossips, hanging out together, sniping, bitching, bending the truth and bragging. I have heard stories throughout my life from my mother, my very Southern grandmother and my beloved Southern aunt about families, women and old folk in particular, gathering on the porch during the heat of the day or at sundown, having a good old gabfest. Kids hanging from the posts holding up the eaves of the porch. Complaints about the heat. Who’s wearing what or how awful or shameful someone is. Hand held fans or folded newspapers constantly generating air either to keep the sweat or the flies away. That’s right. You’ve got the picture. But, as I said, most of the stories were about women or the elderly….that is until BUSINESS JOHNSON.
Picture it. Anytown USA. A clapboard house. A porch. A group of guys young and old alike. Beer swilling. Gums flapping. Running commentary on the neighborhood, who’s doing what or not doing what to whom. Lies that are such whoppers you wait to see if noses will grow like Pinocchio. Shirttails hanging out. Socks and sandals with shorts. The laughter starts with the opening frame and you are hooked from the get-go. What starts as a tall tale about a man with one ear soon becomes a knee slapping, side splitting game of storytelling one upsmanship that moves at a rapid fire pace.
Starring urban comics, Rodney Perry, Larry B. Scott who is probably most remembered as Lamar in “Revenge of the Nerds, Jerod Mixon, Alonzo Bodden, Reggie de Morton and Adolphus Ward, the gang has a chemistry that cries lifetime allegiances and a lifetime of fun. There is nothing rehearsed or stiff about their performances or their engaging, conversational dialogue that smacks of Robert Altman’s style. And despite their apparent idiocy at times, you can’t help but like these guys. You want to be there with them right in the middle of all the fun. And although everything may seem non-sensical and incomplete, that in and of itself is what life is all about.
Written by Casper Frank and co-directed by Frank and Talia Raine, BUSINESS JOHNSON has an uncensored, honest, raunchy and raw truth to it that just begs to keep going beyond its seven minutes.
