Recently watched the movie Of
Boys and Men, an independently-produced family drama with Robert Townsend,
Angela Bassett and Victoria Rowell.
Townsend plays a working-class father who struggles to keep his
family together after his loving wife (Bassett) is killed in a car accident.
Bassett essentially has a cameo, appearing in a handful of flashbacks laughing and
horsing around with her husband and children. There’s also a scene where she
appears apparently as a ghost to reassure her husband that her spirit will
always be with him.
Rowell plays the opposite of her scheming character Drucilla on The Young & the Restless. In Of Boys and Men, she plays Townsend’s
understanding sister who becomes a surrogate mother and guidance counselor, of
sorts, to her niece and nephews.
The story centers around Townsend’s 10-year-old son, who falls
in with the wrong crowd and starts acting out and robbing neighbors after his
mother dies. The little boy has to decide if he wants to go live with his more
stable, financially secure aunt or stay with his harried, overwhelmed father.
Young actor Dante Boens does an excellent job of portraying the boy’s emotional
conflicts.
Of Boys and Men is a movie worth watching that presents a three-dimensional portrait of an African-American family.
