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Friday After Next

compiled by Jeffrey Overstreet
from Film Forum, 11/27/02

Friday After Next continues the popular comedy franchise that began with Friday. This time, the central characters have moved out of the family house and are in their own place. When their house is robbed on Christmas Eve, they call up their cronies to track down the villains.

Gerri Pare (Catholic News) calls it "haphazardly directed," and laments, "The indulgent depiction of recreational drug use is not funny given the reality of how many lives have been disastrously affected by substance abuse. Nor are the racial epithets and the stereotyping of African-Americans an enjoyable element of this crude comedy."

Mainstream critics also wrote it off. Owen Gleiberman (Entertainment Weekly) says, "It's Christmas in the hood, and there are two or three funny ornaments on the tree, but not nearly enough of them to free the third entry in the Friday series from that drab, been-there-smoked-that feeling known as obligatory sequelitis."