"American Fiction" is touted as a fearless, incisive critique of white powerbrokers who promote black underclass values and behaviors in order to sell books and movies. Think the white producer behind the provocative black rapper.

That's what you see in the "American Fiction" trailer. That's *not* what you get when you sit through the entire film.

"American Fiction" is for the most part a grade Z domestic melodrama. Shallow, insincere, undercooked, and not at all emotionally engaging. The characterizations are so trite and so shallow I didn't care about any of these characters. There is a death and I just did not care.

Mom has Alzheimer's. Sis works for Planned Parenthood and has a health crisis. Brother is a gay man who married a beard who divorced him and took his money. Dad was a serial adulterer who ended his own life in the family beach house. Monk, the main character, is abrasive and close to friendless. He takes up with a neighbor lady and manages to alienate her.

The one believable character, a lovely, caring woman, is the black maid, who is, alas, all too close to the kind of stereotypical character Hattie McDaniel once played. But, again, this maid is the one character in the movie who cares about other people, so I liked her.

That's the bulk of the movie. The critique of stereotyping is brief and not at all new. Nothing new is said. No new ground is broken. All the white cultural powerbrokers and ridiculous and clueless and too caricatured to make any real point.

No mention of black audiences who buy violent rap or the actual people who live the actual lives described in books like that written by Sintara Golden.

There are so many important themes here that the movie completely ignores or underserves. This emperor is totally naked. The people praising this movie are as bad as the powerbrokers satirized within the film.