Craig and Day-Day are back in the ghetto as Friday After Next opens, after a relative s lottery win allowed them to spend the previous film, Next Friday, in the lap of luxury. They re behind on the rent, unemployed, and as the picture opens their Christmas presents are being stolen by Santa Claus. That s the ghetto for you a point the movie makes again and again, with humor that will cause some to laugh and others to cringe. There s already a controversy about the movie s TV spots, which coincidentally superimpose Santa s Ho, ho, ho over shots of black women.
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As it happens, I saw the movie at about the same time as Adam Sandler s 8 Crazy Nights, another holiday picture with an ethnic angle. That probably helped me get in a better spirit. Sandler s film is so mean-spirited that Friday After Next, for all of its vulgarity (and scatology, and obscenity), seems almost benevolent by contrast. At least its characters just wanna have fun and don t seem mad at the