From left: Queen Latifah, Regina Hall, Jada Pinkett Smith and Tiffany Haddish in Girls Trip. ( Universal Pictures / TNS )

Starring Regina Hall, Queen Latifah. Directed by Malcolm D. Lee. Opens Friday in GTA theatres. 122 minutes. 18A

There is a positive and life-affirming message about sisterhood and personal empowerment in Girls Trip.

But you have to wade through an awful lot of clutter to get there. Or perhaps dross would be a more accurate description.

The film is audacious and unabashed in its determination to draw laughs from material that takes vulgarity to the extreme. Some of it works while a lot of it is just head-shakingly awful.

The plot is straightforward: four women, best pals since college 25 years earlier, reunite for the first time in quite a while to party hardy at the annual Essence Music Festival can you say product placement? in the Big Easy.

Ryan (Regina Hall) is a successful self-help author and guest speaker at the event, hoping to land a merchandising deal with a mega-retailer (if only she can overlook the activities of her cheating louse of a husband).

Sasha (Queen Latifah) is a journalist who has sold out, barely scraping a living with a celebrity-gossip blog. Lisa (Jada Pinkett Smith) is a glammed-down helicopter mom to two kids while Dina (Tiffany Haddish) is the sassy, libidinous one with major impulse-control issues.

With four credited screenwriters, the too many chefs maxim applies the script is loose and lazy, with more focus on antics and bad language than plot and character development.

Words like bitch, ho and the dreaded N-word flow freely, and how tiresome and anti-feminist it is to hear women repeat the mantra that what all a woman with the blues needs is something big and black.

Two scenes drew horrified peals of laughter from the audience at a recent public screening, one involving golden showers and a second featuring full frontal nudity by a homeless man.

Still, the film is not a total writeoff. Theres some good chemistry among the four principals and a fine performance from Hall as Ryan, a torn woman whose life looks way better on the outside.

And Queen Latifah brings her usual solid screen presence, along with some sweet melancholy, to the role of Sasha.

Theres clearly a ready audience for Girls Trip it certainly tickled funny bones at the advance screening and theres a resolution that is genuinely warm and redemptive.

But a comedy thats so determined to shock the laughs out of you isnt going to be everyones idea of a fun trip to the movies.

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Girls Trip goes too far, far too often: review - Toronto Star