Bringing Down The House (Full Screen Edition)

• The hilarious Steve Martin (FATHER OF THE BRIDE) and Academy Award(R)-nominee Queen Latifah (Best Supporting Actress, 2002, CHICAGO) star with Eugene Levy (AMERICAN PIE) in the laugh-out-loud hit comedy BRINGING DOWN THE HOUSE. Peter Sanderson (Martin), a divorced, straitlaced, uptight workaholic attorney, meets a brainy bombshell lawyer in an on-line chat room and they make a date. Expecting his

The long-running New York Times bestseller that has become a cultural phenomenon, Bringing Down the House is an action-filled caper carried out by the unlikeliest of cons -- supersmart geeks. Gambling pervaded the M.I.T. campus, and genius kids with money and glittering futures were just as likely to be found in a Paradise Island casino as in the school library. A highly elite group of mathletes was recruited to join The Club, a small, secret blackjack organization dedicated to counting! cards and beating the major casinos across the nation at their own game. As a successful ring of card savants, backed by a mysterious ringleader and shadowy investors, they infiltrated Vegas and won millions.

The Boston Herald acclaimed it as "a suspenseful tale that portrays the players as Davids going up against Goliaths." And Bill Simmons of ESPN magazine exclaimed, "This book made me want to gamble! Vegas! Vegas!" Filled with tense action, high stakes, and incredibly close calls, Bringing Down the House is a nail-biting chronicle of a real-life Ocean's Eleven. It's one story that Vegas does not want you to read.The hilarious Steve Martin (FATHER OF THE BRIDE) and Academy Award(R)-nominee Queen Latifah (Best Supporting Actress, 2002, CHICAGO) star with Eugene Levy (AMERICAN PIE) in the laugh-out-loud hit comedy BRINGING DOWN THE HOUSE. Peter Sanderson (Martin), a divorced, straitlaced, uptight workaholic attorney, meets a brainy bombshel! l lawyer in an on-line chat room and they make a date. Expecti! ng his s oul mate, he opens the door and finds himself face-to-face with Charlene (Latifah) -- a wild and crazy soul "sister" who's just escaped from prison and wants Peter to clear her name. But Peter wants absolutely nothing to do with her, and that prompts Charlene to turn Peter's perfectly ordered life totally upside down. Hysterical complications abound and Peter soon finds out he may need Charlene just as much as she needs him. It's a houseful of fun your family will enjoy again and again.The pleasingly contrasting comic styles of Queen Latifah and Steve Martin bring some energy to Bringing Down the House, a hopelessly formulaic comedy. Martin plays Peter, an uptight lawyer too obsessed with work to spend quality time with his kids. Into his life comes Queen Latifah as Charlene, an escaped convict who threatens to wreck his relationship with a wealthy but arch-conservative client (Joan Plowright, in high dudgeon) if Peter won't take up her case. Of course, Latifah's exu! berant ways enchant his kids and bring out a looser, livelier side of Peter, all in a series of scenes so standard they hardly register. Thank goodness for Eugene Levy; as one of Peter's law partners with a taste for Charlene's bodacious brand of sexy, Levy's ingenious transformation from nebbish to loverman is the movie's secret weapon, stealthily planting comic explosions amidst the modest rice-krispie-crackle of the stale plot. --Bret Fetzer