Two Can Play That Game

A movie that preaches dishonesty, trickery and manipulation as the keys to romantic happiness, Two Can Play That Game is populated by pathetically shallow "players" of both sexes and very talented actors trapped by their skin color in a tired genre of self-perpetuating stereotypes. Vivica A. Fox is a successful black ad executive who thinks her man (Morris Chestnut) may be running around on her. Rather than confronting him and having an adult conversation or just leaving to find someone better, she launches into an inane plan of vindictive head games to get him to behave. The great cast can't make up for the fact that they're repeating immature, self-centered roles in interchangeable movies (Baby Boy, The Brothers, love jones) that always resolve with cheap, last-reel regrets artificially shoring up flimsy relationships between superficial people. Not a necessary purchase. (R. Blackwelder)