This was a real sweet potato of a film, with lots of romance, down to earth people and the gals had plenty of moves in the right direction. However, this is really a cute love story between two people who grew up together, loved each other, but the rest is up to you to watch and enjoy. Taye Diggs,(Andre),"Basic",'03, had all kinds of plans in the music industry and seemed to go around in circles with the CD's and met up with a very torrid chick, that wrapped him around her little finger. Sanaa Lathan,(Sidney),"Out of Time",'03, tried to help her friend Andre in every way she could, but he shut her out at times. Great laughs, and plenty of music and it brought back memories of being in the BRONX !

Andre 'Dre' Ellis (Taye Diggs) is tired of selling out as A&R in a hip hop label. His lifelong friend Sidney Shaw (Sanaa Lathan) is more concerned about her career as editor-in-chief of a hip hop magazine. Their platonic relationship is thrown for a loop when he tells her that he's marrying Reese Ellis (Nicole Ari Parker). He tells her that men are looking for Brown Sugar, somebody sweet enough to marry and freaky enough for the bed. She's jealous of Reese and Reese notices. Dre and Reese get married but Reese is not that happy when he quits his job to start his own label. Kelby Dawson (Boris Kodjoe) surprises everybody by proposing to Sid. Sid and Dre discover Reese cheating on him.

This is a good functional romance. Sanaa and Taye Diggs are nice actors for the roles. I like Nicole Ari Parker in her role. The hip hop industry insider stuff has to be taken with a grain of salt even though there are a couple of musician actors. It follows a certain formula and that's perfectly fine. I really like the actors and that keeps my interest.

Usually when you watch a romance about two people who are "just friends", one of the pair isn't very attractive - otherwise, why wouldn't they immediately get together? This isn't the case in Brown Sugar, starring the equally gorgeous Sanaa Lathan and Taye Diggs. So why would they stay just friends? Because they grew up together, established a strong friendship as children and bonded in adolescence through mutual love of hip-hop music. As adults, Taye works for a music producing label and Sanaa writes critiques. They get along very well, but they've both put each other in the "friend zone" and have no intention of changing it. Despite Queen Latifah, Sanaa's best friend, repeatedly teasing about their obvious attraction, Taye gets engaged to Nicole Ari Walker.

If you're just looking at this as a cute romantic comedy, it won't hurt you. But if you want to take it seriously, there's a major red flag. Taye Diggs's character is not a nice person. He has no problem using up his friend's attention and time, happy that he's the only man in her life; when she starts dating someone, he's jealous and unsupportive. Yet, he expects her to be completely supportive about his engagement. The night before his wedding, he takes advantage of Sanaa's friendship and kisses her, then goes his merry way with Nicole. Then (yes, there's more!),he has a moment of self-importance and quits his job. The first person he tells is Sanaa, and they hang out in the park for a few hours talking about what a great idea it would be for him to start his own business. When he finally comes home and tells his wife, Nicole is upset that she wasn't included in his decision, told before Sanaa, or turned to for the sharing of his feelings. She's completely right! Taye's response: "The wife's job is to support the husband." If that's his idea of marriage, any woman should steer clear of him. Nicole is beautiful, poised, intelligent, classy, and forward-thinking. And yet, instead of apologizing and admitting he made many mistakes in one day, he throws it up to her that Sanaa supports his whim of creating a business. Any friend would support his pipe dream; a wife has a completely different perspective because it affects her!

Alright, I'm off my soap box. If you like the lead actors, you'll probably enjoy the movie. I found it entertaining and funny, even though I didn't like the message. My favorite part was when Mos Def was giving Taye romantic advice. He admits he hasn't been given any real development because he's the buddy character: "I'm not the Humphrey Bogart. I'm the Peter Lorre; I'm the sidekick."