Kingdom Come

Director Doug McHenry strikes an impressively deft balance between slapstick and subtlety, satire and sincerity in this dysfunctional family comedy centered around a funeral. Combining earnestly conflicted devotion with over-the-top raillery in much the same way All In the Family once did, the story concerns the Slocumb clan's (including LL Cool J, Anthony Anderson, Jada Pinkett Smith and Vivica A. Fox) gathering in their rural home town to say goodbye to an irascible patriarch so universally disliked that his wife (Whoopi Goldberg) actually wants his headstone engraved with the eulogy "mean and surly." Uniformly honest and affectionate performances engage the audience in the lives of this realistic ensemble, whose family dynamic rings admirably true as everyone struggles with mixed feelings concerning both the not-so-dearly departed and each other. With its carefully constructed cavalcade of crafty humorous asides and outright outrageous moments of screwball comedy, Kingdom Come is warmly recommended. (R. Blackwelder)