Our Family Wedding

Directed by Rick Famuyiwa. Starring Forest Whitaker, America Ferrera, Carlos Mencia, Regina King, Lance Gross. 12A cert, lim release, 90 min

ON ITS release in 1967, with the Black Panthers organising and Malcolm X dead, the oddly overrated Guess Who's Coming to Dinneralready seemed to be speaking the racial politics of a vanished generation. Well, that creeky comedy looks like a Spike Lee joint when set beside this utterly feeble, apparently endless, occasionally dubious retread of the same themes.

This time round, rather than a posh Wasp girl bringing an African-American fiancé home to papa, the bride-to-be comes from a comfortable Mexican family. Once again, however, the film plays it safe by offering us a couple whose perfection – spiritual, intellectual, moral, physical – condemns any objecting parent as a racist. Given that both heroes attended the finest medical schools before electing to dedicate their lives to helping the poor, only a sociopath could reasonably oppose the union.

As you probably don’t need to be told, the respective fathers begin the film as mildly prejudiced old codgers. Forest Whitaker plays a wealthy radio host who, in one of several thumping coincidences, has his sports car toed by a Mexican garage owner (Carlos Mencia) moments after the opening credits fade. Later on, he finally gets to meet his son’s girlfriend and her protective father. Look who it is! Why, I oughta . . .

We are then subjected to a conflict between African-American and Mexican culture, during which – despite the film’s liberal posturing – no stereotype is left unexploited and no cheap joke is forsworn. Mariachi bands strum. Broomsticks are jumped. The Mexican granny faints dead away when she meets her granddaughter’s potential husband.

Eventually, everyone involved realises that their prejudices are founded on hard reality and, after vowing to stick to their own kind, the couple split in savagely acrimonious circumstances. Just joking, I’m afraid, but the film is so relentlessly gooey you do find yourself praying for disharmony to escalate.

Indeed, Our Family Weddingis so appallingly dull, the viewer positively cheers when the goat eats the Viagra and begins shagging every available kneecap.

Surprisingly, I didn’t make that last bit up.