How U Like Me Now (1992) User Reviews

Needs Some Tweaking

[view_and_review · 5/10 · 26 August 2018]

At times this movie was really bad and at times it was OK. It actually ended on an uptick which made it bearable. I was a hair's breadth from turning the movie off.

The main characters are four... um... friends? Enemies? Frenemies? Honestly, three of them were friends no doubt and the fourth was a pariah. It seemed his only purpose was to antagonize everyone else. My assumption is that he hung around them just to feel better about himself because they weren't doing as well financially.

These four guys were exhausting to watch and listen to with the exception of one: B.J. (Darryl Roberts). He was the conscious one amongst them. He was the only one that actually made sense when he spoke even if he went a little deep on the plight of the black man.

As for the other three guys... ugh. Deplorable. One guy was a pompous ass, another was a sophomoric skirt chaser, and the other guy, Tom (Darnell Williams)--the only one in a committed relationship--was an absolute a-hole to his girlfriend. Just watching these three doofuses in action gave me a headache.

The women characters each had their own flaws but they seemed to be better than the men.

The movie seemed to be going absolutely nowhere. It had a terrible plot and an even worse soundtrack. The soundtrack was awful from a sound perspective and from a voice perspective. The sound was horrible like it was recorded on a secondhand synthesizer and the men who occasionally sang could not carry a note.

Eventually, the movie made a turn for the better. A couple of the characters woke up while others got their just desserts. It was clearly a low budget movie but I think with mild tweaking it could've been much better.

Shows Promise, But Falls Short of Potential

[IboChild · 4/10 · 16 March 1999]

A vast improvement over his absolutely dreadful first film. In this film, the director seems to be trying to make a statement about materialistic women. Unfortunately, the male protagonist is such a self-pitying slacker, that his girlfriend's ultimate rejection of him seems understandable. This film is strictly for die hard Salli Richardson fans.

How you like it, if you're a man

[LJAllen · 8/10 · 23 September 2000]

"How You Like Me Now" was a wonderful and cautionary tale of how not to handle a man. The film centers around Valerie (Salli Richardson) and Thomas (Darnell Williams), a young couple whose relationship burns out due to Valerie's ambition and materialistic drive that clashes with Thomas's lack of passion. Making a long story short: Valerie dumps Thomas for a white guy whom she assumes will drastically improve her lot, while Thomas ends up having his ego stroked by his boss--a woman--whom he ends up dating. Of course when Valerie returns to Thomas she finds a new man thriving without her. This film served a bit too much "stroke-a-man's-ego-to-get-what-you-want" to please a wide viewing audience. Yet its message does come across. Salli Richardson was flawless as the overly critical, materialistic, but romance-starved Valerie. Although this film falls a bit short of its mark, Darnell Williams (Thomas) and Salli Richardson (Valerie) give stand out performances of how values, based on class and gender, alter the timbre of male/female relationships--Ideas about gender and class are rarely explored in film as issues that genuinely effect the interaction between Black men and women. Although a comedy that clearly offers a heavy dose of the male perspective, this film also raises some rather serious issues. B+/A-

Roberts makes an inspiring thought provoking film. Salli Richardson gives an excellent performance

[shawnjames_2000 · 10/10 · 24 October 2005]

I admit my only reason for buying the DVD of How U Like Me Now as a birthday present for myself is because I'm a huge Salli Richardson fan. I was surprised to learn that Writer, Director and Producer Darryl Roberts has made a very inspired satire about lives and loves of African-Americans in Chicago. After watching this intelligent, hilarious and thought provoking DVD, it has become one of my favorite movies. How U like me now is the story of Thomas, a slacker who spends a lot of time hanging with his buddies, drinking beers and going to work when he wants to. His girlfriend Valerie wants him to do something with his life, but Thomas is too busy feeling sorry for himself to change things. Fed up with him, she starts to date a rich white man thinking he'll treat her better. When she finds out that the white guy treats her worse, she decides to go back to Thomas. However, when she goes knocking on his door, Thomas has taken time to better himself and is seeing a supportive sista he met at work. In this simple story Roberts adds many abstract layers and makes many comments about the black community and how blacks relate to each other. I recommend you watch the film twice to really understand it. How U Like Me now is one of those the rare African-American films that is not only a comedy, but also a social commentary about the state of the overall black community. The film is quite symbolic; each of the characters represents a section of the black community. The main character Thomas represents the black everyman frustrated with the direction of his life in white society and feels there's no way of changing it so he gives up. Valerie represents the educated black woman frustrated by the progress of her black man as compared to White men in American society. Spoony (He reminds me a lot of Quagmire on Family Guy) represents the hedonistic young black male concerned only with physical pleasure. Alex represents the Black conservative Uncle Toms, wanting to be white, perpetrating pretentiousness but in actuality is just like everyone else, struggling to survive. There are two dark skinned females who represent gold diggers and strong women, and a gay character representing black homosexuals. Roberts himself portrays a character that represents intelligent self-aware African Americans striving for self-empowerment and self-fulfillment. He spends most of the movie trying to pass knowledge onto his friends so they'll wake up, but no one listens to him. This rounds out the circle of friends in this Chicago neighborhood and shows us the diversity of viewpoints in the overall black community. Darnell Williams is great as Thomas. Williams expresses Thomas' frustration extremely well I could relate to his struggles because they're the same ones I face everyday. I'm an even bigger Salli Richardson fan after watching this movie. She gives one of her best performances as Valerie. She has great chemistry with Williams and does an amazing job of conveying Valerie's emotions. Watching her facial expressions during and after the film's only sex scene (I am so glad they actually had the characters discuss sex and relationships maturely instead of having people just roll in the hay in a gratuitous romp) made me realize how great an actress she is. She made that scene feel incredibly realistic! Those scenes and the scenes she has while staying at her mother's house are worth the price of the DVD alone; this is ACTING. Darryl Gardner is hilarious as Spoony, stealing every scene he's in. Raymond Whitfield does a great job playing Alex capturing the arrogance of the character. I wanted to slap him. Charnele Brown is great in her few scenes and Roberts himself is quite good as the self-aware brother no one listens to. The guy who plays the gay hairdresser does a great job; I'm so glad he didn't portray his character as a flamboyant cartoonish stereotype but instead played him as just an ordinary man who likes men. I'm sure I'm missing some people, but, everyone involved in this film should give themselves a round of applause. They've done a wonderful job of making these characters into real people who lived in the Chicago neighborhood. The production values on this film are great, considering the low budget. Filming the entire movie on location actually works to Roberts' advantage allowing him to create a movie that feels like real life transpiring on screen. I felt the grittiness of early 90's Chicago in every frame. Shooting out of real shops and homes gives How U Like Me Now a heart and soul most other Hollywood produced black films don't have. Roberts writes a strong screenplay with only a few weak lines of dialogue and has a few story elements missing. In trying to tell the story the Roberts' direction is a little uneven and has some transition and cohesion problems, but the story and the message are easy to understand. My only beef is with Xenon on the crappy treatment they gave this great movie. Xenon printed this disc on the cheap making a bare bones one-sided wide screen DVD with no trailer or any extras. I would have loved to see some extra features and deleted scenes of this film. Better yet, I'd love to see a Director's cut of this movie with the deleted scenes added in. I know there were many important parts of this story cut out to make the 109-minute running time.