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Undercover Brother
(Reviewed May 19, 2002)
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More pure fun than "Spider-Man" and "Attack of the Clones" put together! (How's that for a quote that should be picked up by the studio's marketing department and used in all of the print ads?)
This good-natured sendup of 1970s blaxploitation movies is full of "Airplane!"-style, so-dumb-they're-hilarious gags. It's not exactly big-budget (to say the least), and not all of the jokes work, but the ones that do more than compensate for the clunkers. Billy Dee Williams' press conference as a Colin Powell-type general was so over-the-top outrageous that it literally made me laugh out loud. This movie is so cheerfully politically incorrect that it refers to super-hot blond babe Denise Richards as "black man's Kryptonite," and equips Undercover Brother with a spy-gadget watch that shoots hot sauce.
Eddie Griffin plays Undercover Brother with a kind of laid-back, stupid cool, working for an organization called The B.R.O.T.H.E.R.H.O.O.D. (whose initials are never explained) with fellow agents Sistah Girl, Smart Brother, Conspiracy Brother...and Neil Patrick "Doogie Howser" Harris as the white intern who had to be hired by the organization to meet affirmative-action requirements. They go up against an organization run by The Man, who employs Richards as the agent known as "White She-Devil." Like I said: It's dumb, but it really is pretty funny.
And if you need further incentive to see it, let me just say: Denise Richards in a costume-ripping catfight that ends up in the shower. 'Nuff said?
Back Row Grade: B
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