Synopsis:
In Love Don't Cost A Thing, an urban comedy inspired by the classic 1987 teen romance Can't Buy Me Love, likeable outcast Alvin Johnson (NICK CANNON) is looking to bust loose.
With his head...
In Love Don't Cost A Thing, an urban comedy inspired by the classic 1987 teen romance Can't Buy Me Love, likeable outcast Alvin Johnson (NICK CANNON) is looking to bust loose.
With his head always buried in a book or under the hood of a car, Alvin has spent the last three years of high school grinding away at his studies and working as a pool boy to earn extra cash. No doubt, Alvin's focus has paid off: he's finally saved enough Benjamins to finish building an engine he designed - an engine that's going to win him a much-needed college scholarship.
But while Alvin is off the charts academically…socially, he's a big phat zero. Invisible to the "Elites," the school's designer label-sporting in-crowd, Alvin spends his Saturday nights playing cards with his equally dorky friends and watching home basketball games from the visitors section.
It doesn't help that Alvin is a bit of a disappointment to his father Clarence (STEVE HARVEY), an old school player who longs to re-live his glory days as a ladies man through his impossibly shy son. "All that workin' without any lovin'," Clarence cautions, "will drive a man crazy."
As he enters his senior year, Alvin is jonesing to kick his nerdy persona to the curb and somehow become cool enough to chill with ultra-popular students like Paris Morgan (CHRISTINA MILIAN), the hottest girl in school and queen of the Elites.
When Paris accidentally wrecks her mother's Cadillac Escalade, Alvin seizes the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and engineers a plan to launch him from pariah to player. He presents her with a simple deal: in exchange for Alvin laying down the cash and fixing her mother's car, Paris will fake a front - pretend to date him - and ensure his entrée into the ranks of the school's elite.
Desperate to get the car fixed before her mother finds out about the accident, Paris reluctantly agrees to Alvin's plan…with a couple of conditions. Number one: it's for two weeks only, and number two: Alvin better not even try to look at her booty.
With Paris on his arm, he rockets from Alvin the nerdy pool boy to "Al," a stylin' playboy who rolls with the Elite crew. His newfound swagger earns Al mad props from the jocks and gets him noticed big time by the bootylicious shorties who once shunned him.
As their relationship evolves, Alvin brings out the best in Paris, but Al is bringing out the worst in him. Caught up in the material rewards of living large, Al is convinced that being popular is better than being a social leper - much to his dad's delight. But if he chooses to keep perpetrating his big pimpin' persona instead of keeping it real, he risks permanently alienating his real friends, blowing off his shot at the scholarship and missing the signs that while everyone else is falling for Al, Paris might actually be falling for Alvin.
Alcon Entertainment presents a Burg/Koules production starring NICK CANNON and CHRISTINA MILIAN, the romantic teen comedy Love Don't Cost A Thing. Directed by TROY BEYER from a screenplay by TROY BEYER and MICHAEL SWERDLICK, based upon the screenplay Can't Buy Me Love by MICHAEL SWERDLICK, the film also stars KENAN THOMPSON, KAL PENN and STEVE HARVEY. The producers are MARK BURG, REUBEN CANNON, ANDREW A. KOSOVE and BRODERICK JOHNSON. OREN KOULES is the executive producer, and NAVA LEVIN, KIRA DAVIS and STEVEN P. WEGNER are the co-producers. The director of photography is CHUCK COHEN; the production designer is CABOT McMULLEN; the editor is DAVID CODRON; the costume designers are CHRISTINE PETERS and JENNIFER MALLINI; the composer is RICHARD GIBBS; and the music supervisor is MICHAEL McQUARN.
This film has been rated "PG-13" by the MPAA for "sexual content and sexual humor."
Love Don't Cost A Thing will be distributed in North America on December 12, 2003 by Warner Bros. Pictures, a Warner Bros. Entertainment Company. -- © Warner Bros.
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