In the film, Reid is less flamboyant but just as slick and deadpan as Venus Flytrap, the disc jockey he played in the popular TV sitcom WKRP in Cincinnati. Here he plays Mac, a former defense attorney 'livin large as a legal representative for temperamental hip hoppers. Like his successful clients, he lives far from the streets, and project, in a huge house in the isolated burbs, where he has a housekeeper (Kweli Leapart) with a major problem: she can't handle the orphaned 18-year-old niece she's been trying to raise. As fate, and Hollywood scripts, would have it after dropping his employee off at her home back in the "for real" world, his little car computer directs him right through one of the most bad-ass neighborhoods, where he's confronted at gunpoint by a group of hoods. It just so happens that Hardy's niece, CeCe (Tamara Curry), was one of them, and by court order she's released on probation only on condition that Reid be responsible for her. Her transformation—and his, for this also has echoes of Scrooge—forms the formulaic core of the movie, which has more overt messages than a listserve.

Despite the didacticism, it's refreshing to see a film that doesn't glorify gang-banging life, and tackles head-on the problem of blacks resenting blacks who succeed. A male-fantasy subplot temporarily derails the Henry Higgins/Eliza Doolittle relationship (and just seems, well, WRONG). But otherwise fairly crisp writing, competent direction, and solid acting keep For Real real.

The film has "attitude" both ways, with hood angst balanced by Mac's upwardly mobile take. When he shows CeCe a picture of his maitre'd father and she sneers, ("Toms run in your family,") he tells her that working hard and respecting others doesn't make anybody a "house nigger." It.s unfortunate, though, that Reid tackles one stereotype—that athletics are one of the only ways out of the hood—but reinforces another by having music be CeCe's ticket out, rather than law or business.

Just as unfortunate, the extras are slight. There's a behind-the-scenes feature that shows Curry on camera and Reid behind the camera, but it's barely longer than a trailer (also included here). Two other features, "The Music of For Real" and "The Women of For Real," are real fluff and just as short—around 10 minutes. The most entertaining extra is the bloopers reel, which surprisingly shows some of Reid's methods and not just a bunch of yuk-yuk foul-ups. And that's it for the extras. It would have been nice to have had an interview with Reid talking about how much the project meant to him, and what hopes he had for the film, or to have had some background or stats on what he obviously sees as a major problem for young African Americans, or how he saw the film in relation to other work he's done.

Fans of Reid may wonder what he's been up to since WKRP, and as a director he still seems to be finding himself. While the TV show was still running in prime time, he got behind the camera to direct a low-budget animated version of The Little Mermaid, which has the same kind of sad ending as Hans Christian Andersen's original tale. But his real breakout directorial debut came years after the show closed, in 1996, with Once Upon a Time…When We Were Colored (1996), a powerful post-WWII coming-of-age story about growing up black in a racist America.

There's no shortage of Pygmalion-style transformation films in Hollywood. Americans seem to love them as much as the promise that anyone, no matter how low their station in life, can succeed in this country with hard work, dedication, and a bit of lottery-style luck. Whether it's a hooker-turned-lady, as in Pretty Woman, low-brows turned high-brows, as in Gigi and My Fair Lady, ditz turned smart in Legally Blonde, commoner turned royalty in Pocketful of Miracles and The Princess Diaries, or a con-man turned successful businessman in Trading Places, we love these variations on a theme. And, in terms of overall quality and entertainment value, For Real falls somewhere in the middle of the pack.