In yet another cinematic pass at Shakespeare's \Taming of the Shrew,"" ""Deliver Us From Eva"" does very little to differentiate itself from the average romantic comedy. Whether that's good or bad is debatable, but given the potential of any film starring LL Cool J, the finished product could have been far worse.
Eva Dandridge (Gabrielle Union) is the stereotypical aggressive Shakespearean female; full of attitude and vigor, she advises her three sisters in every area of life. Their husbands, frequently the subject of her verbal barbs, eventually get sick of her meddling and approach player-extraordinaire Ray (LL Cool J). Apparently willing to pay $5,000 to get Eva out of their intimate lives, the guys strike a deal and the premise of the movie is set. Ray plans to woo Eva, get her out of LA and away from the sisters, and then dump her. Once his courtship begins, he actually falls for her, setting up an inevitable, heartbreaking revelation of his dishonesty.
The problem with ""Deliver Us From Eva"" is not so much the use of the ""Shrew"" storyline but the reliance on it. Eva offers nothing new or interesting, nor are there any particularly strong performances. Union and Cool J have surprisingly decent on-screen chemistry, but not near enough to make up for the rest of the cast. The husbands of the Dandridge sisters, played by Duane Martin, Mel Jackson and Dartanyan Edmonds, are stock characters so overused that their lines could have been written by a Hollywood Script Generator. The primary faults with ""Eva"" lie in a script that is aggravatingly predictable--every plot point and twist are seen a mile away, and the secondary characters must have been written with a dialogue-by-numbers kit.
Director Gary Hardwick's performance is mixed. The film's aesthetic is slick and cool, fitting very well with lead LL Cool J's performance as Ray. The camera work and editing are incredibly average and passable, but the biggest disappointment is his direction of the actors. With a script containing such flimsy characters, Hardwick did not encourage subtle and real performances. Despite the performances of Union and Cool J, the film still grates on the nerves.
