Starring Halle Berry, Natalie Desselle, Ian Richardson and Martin Landau Directed by Robert Townsend Rated PG-13, with moderate profanity and sexual innuendo Running time 100 minutes Jack gives this film a rating of 3 out of 10

(March 28, 1997) -- Halle Berry and newcomer Natalie Desselle co-star as young country bumpkins trying to be cool in Beverly Hills in B.A.P.S., a tired and tattered comedy that rather quickly wears out its welcome.

B.A.P.S. stands for Black American Princesses -- which is an ironic choice here for a title, since Nisi (Berry) and Mickey (Desselle) are anything but princesses. And their journey to Beverly Hills is in the over-used tradition of The Beverly Hillbillies and about a zillion other fish-out-of-water, rags-to-riches sagas.

Nisi is a would-be hair stylist and Mickey dreams of running a soul-food restaurant. They leave their small town behind when Nisi decides to audition as a music video dancer in Hollywood. Needless to say, she barely gets in the door at the audition.

And that's when the plot in Troy Beyer's grossly under-developed screenplay starts to unravel. For reasons that are never clear or plausible, a scheming young man hires the two inept young women to live with an aging millionaire in a lavish Beverly Hills mansion. (They aren't hired for sex, but beyond that, I haven't a clue.)

The millionaire (Martin Landau) is dying, but the spirited girls give him a last few weeks of spunky fun. They go on a Rodeo Drive shopping spree (probably inspired by looking at a Pretty Woman video), and boogie the night away at an L.A. dance club.

And you don't have to be a genius to figure out how Nisi and Mickey are going to get the seed money for their dream of a combination hair salon and lunch counter.

Directed by Robert Townsend, B.A.P.S. offers about as much character development and plot complexity as you could scribble on a cocktail napkin. (That's probably how this screenplay was developed.)

Left with nothing to do but vamp, Berry, Desselle and even the veteran Landau have little choice but to overact, trying to create explosions where there is no dynamite.