Usher Should’ve Stuck to Making ‘Confessions’: A Look at 2005’s ‘In the Mix’

Happy Tuesday. I’m just Johnthan with a few thoughts about Usher’s In the Mix. In a few words, the 2005 crime dramedy “epic” is not a good movie to me.

In fact, it may be worse than other 2000s rapper/R&B singer-helmed projects like Big Boi’s Who’s Your Caddy? At least Big Boi’s vehicle knew it was ridiculous and tried to play within the realms of its ridiculousness to get some cheap laughs. Stuff like Soul Plane is formulaic and “out there” as hell, but it actually still gives a damn about trying to entertain. I still chuckle at the one scene in Soul Plane where the couple is having sex outside the plane, if only for its disregard for real life/actual logic. Even its Michael Jackson dig, while a lower-hanging fruit than the droopiest apple tree, got me to chuckle — after an audible groan. I’ll say this: give me any 2000s-2010s Madea movie over In the Mix. Literally any Madea movie, even the one with Bow Wow.

In the Mix plays more like an Usher commercial. That’s because it’s seemingly a feature-length excuse for him to be shirtless running around with a prop gun, being PG-13 intimate with his leading lady and spouting off one-liners and groaners like his last name was Seagal. If being toned, shirtless, marketable and being somewhat charming in a role was all we needed to make a good film, Dwayne Johnson would have an Oscar by now.

Alas, The Rock’s been rock-blocked by Hollywood up to this point and Usher will (in theory) steal your girl. We’ve all seen what happened to Tom in that one episode of The Boondocks. Even though he was wrong, he assumed what many a person has over the years. And why? Well, women (and some men) love them some Usher because the dude’s hot and was at his popularity peak in the mid-2000s. But even that couldn’t save this one.

In this film, our 5'8"(?) action hero ends up in a plot that plays like The Bodyguard meets Godfather Part III with all the subtlety of an Afterschool Special. That is, if Kevin Costner’s mostly down-and-out bodyguard was replaced by a mobster-employed DJ and Whitney was played by Sloan from Entourage (Dolly as played by actress Emmanuelle Chriqui).

That’s it. That’s the plot. Usher has to bodyguard a mob boss’s daughter he’s slowly falling for. He has to do so all while also helping to broker peace between two rival families by defending said daughter against problem solvers (guns for the uninitiated), cars and overly pushy boyfriends. Again, it’s like The Bodyguard if “I Will Always Love You” was replaced by Rico Love tracks and that one Chris Brown song, “Which One.”

Speaking of mobsters, you would’ve thought that Chazz Palminteri would be above playing Mobster 2005 in 2005. But, I guess character actors gotta character act. So, we end up getting Palminteri playing yet another gruff mobster who still has a bit of goodness in his heart.

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Getting back to the film, with scenes like the above, the movie isn’t funny, interesting or exhilarating . That is, if you’re looking for something other than Usher running around shirtless and solving problems with fists, suaveness and a pew-pew. And even if you are in it just to see Usher show off his chest and v-cuts, two things must be considered.

First, this is a PG-13 movie, so you’re not getting too much salaciousness. You won’t see and T&A, P&DTwo, you can just YouTube one of his many music videos. Heck, I’m sure even his eggplant pic is still somewhere on the interwebs if that’s your cup of tea. While I don’t condone Googling nudes — whether leaked, accidental nudes or on purpose ones — I’d prefer readers do that than waste their time with this flick. Yes, this film is so obtuse and insipid that I’d advocate for you to sneak a peak.

Outside of that, the pacing of the film is all over the place, going from pseudo-tug-at-your-heartstrings melodrama to romcom shenanigans to “let’s make this hip and high stakes” to a knockoff Romeo Must Die at a confusing and breakneck pace. In fact, its pacing rivals classic so-bad-it’s-good “movies” like The Room — except those films were interesting due to their ineptitude.

For In The Mix, the jokes hit so goofily that a nut shot with cuckoo clock sound effects and birdies flying around a bad guy’s head wouldn’t be that out of place. And, while I’ve ragged on Usher being mostly unconvincing in the starring role, his supporting cast falls (which includes a Kevin Hart cameo as a gangsta named “Busta”) into one of two categories: stereotype or embarrassing stereotype. Who writes stuff like this and thinks “oh yeah, this is gonna put butts in seats?”

I mean, I know that the director, Ron Underwood, was trying to escape the stink of The Adventures of Pluto Nash by doing something slightly different. That said, he doesn’t do himself any favors with this. I also know that the screenwriter, Jacqueline Zambrano, seemingly only came working-distance close to Black people when she wrote for/co-created James Earl Jones’ short-lived legal drama Gabriel’s Fire (thank you, IMDB). All in all, expecting this to be good/realistic is akin to Dick Wolf creating a show that doesn’t revolve around cops, government agents or first responders. However, the stereotypes here are so on-the-nose, you pray that Usher doesn’t get crushed by the weight of them all. And not even just the Black folks, either. Everyone is painted with the broadest of strokes.

What makes matters worse is that people try to forget that this movie exists. Usually that’d be a good thing, because the less people who know about schlock, the better. However, I want Usher to atone for the sin of unleashing this movie onto us. After all, even his most-devout fans couldn’t save this one from bombing. Released over the Thanksgiving holiday in 2005, when Usher’s star was still around its brightest (“Yeah” was still getting placed in random movies), the movie brought in about $10M. I guess that it still brought in more than Who’s Your Caddy?, so there’s a moral victory to be had somewhere, I think. Nevertheless, it was horrible all around and a waste of time, money and star power. Like I said, even if you’re an Usher stan, there are better places to get your fix.