Parents' Guide to Back on the Strip

Unfortunately, this comedy is hampered by jokes that seem both stale (as in they would have been fresher in the early 1990s) and off-putting (i.e. focused on a comically huge penis). Without spoiling too much, it's the latter that really gets in the way of character development and immediately takes you out of the film's fine-on-its-own story about a young man who wants to make something of himself and get the girl in the end. Other elements of the film -- especially the constant swearing and sexual jokes -- don't enhance or further the storyline and just seem to be there because Back on the Strip is geared toward adult audiences.

Yes, the movie is about male exotic dancers, but that doesn't mean that the comedy has to be so lowbrow that it does a disservice to both the audience's intelligence and the characters on screen. And the fact that it's a Black-centric film is important in terms of Hollywood's continuing focus on inclusion. But it's important to note how all films, including ones that do well when it comes to racial representation, can come up short in other areas (in this case, the way a little person is depicted). With a little more care and nuance, Back on the Strip could have turned out as a fun, if simple, story about getting the gang back together for sexually charged Vegas hijinks.