If this is black American teenage life, show us the door marked Exit. In downtown Blaxville USA, a party is only a flop if the loo gets clogged or one of the partygoers ends in jail, a guy ain't got a prayer if he can't talk the lingo and a girl only respects a man if he asks her if she's on the pill before he pins her to the bed. British cinemagoers will need subtitles and a phrase-book to even get to first base with this modern equivalent of the teenage pop musical. Modern black music can be served well, as Beat Street showed. But House Party is too concerned with its own image to tool its scenario towards some kind of entertainment. The only scene to break through the generations and amuse us all is when the scrawny hero desperately tries to rap-talk his way out of a cellblock gang bang.


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