Harper Stewart is the master of the forehead kiss. He's just affectionate enough to entice a woman, but he doesn't get too close or committed. He saves his best stuff for the pages of his novel, a thinly veiled account of the loves and lives of his college buddies. When an advance copy of the book falls into the hands of one of those friends, an ambitious TV producer, Harper has to face the music -- hip-hop, in this case, the one thing that distinguishes The Best Man from other strained romantic comedies.

Written and directed by Malcolm D. Lee (and co-produced by his cousin, Spike), the film brings together a set of upwardly mobile buppies for the marriage of football star Lance to the angelic Mia. The wedding weekend gets long indeed for Harper when the groom reads between the lines of the novel and discovers a long-lost liaison between his best man and his bride-to-be. Lee's winning cast (Taye Diggs, Nia Long, Morris Chestnut, Sanaa Lathan) is dazzlingly attractive, but his script burps when it needs to fizz. Only Terrence Howard as Quentin, the resident cynic, transcends the material. His sly, bebop delivery hints at what a less generic, better Best Man could be.