Malibu's Most Wanted Review
by Steve Rhodes (Steve DOT Rhodes AT InternetReviews DOT com)April 16th, 2003
MALIBU'S MOST WANTED
A film review by Steve Rhodes
Copyright 2003 Steve Rhodes
RATING (0 TO ****): ** 1/2
MALIBU'S MOST WANTED, directed by SEE SPOT RUN's John Whitesell, is an uneven parody of Eminem in 8 MILE. Making its 80-minute running length feel long, the movie's sometimes cute schtick quickly wears thin. Mixing in parts of ZOOLANDER, BULWORTH and RUTHLESS PEOPLE, the movie does provide a fair number of decent laughs.
Brad Gluckman (Jamie Kennedy), who likes to be called only by his rap name of B-Rad, is a white boy who thinks he's a black rapper. B-Rad suffers from the indignities of having grown up rich. With a beach home that would put the White House to shame, B-Rad calls his over-privileged Malibu environment, the 'Bu. His father, Bill (Ryan O'Neal), is running for governor of California.
Since B-Rad's outlandish behavior is causing Bill to drop like a stone in the polls, something must be done. In order to scare B-Rad white, Tom Gibbons (Blair Underwood), Bill's campaign manager and chief spinmeister, hires a couple of actors, Sean (Taye Diggs) and PJ (Anthony Anderson), to kidnap B-Rad and take him to the 'hood. Diggs and Anderson steal every scene that they are in and are easily the best part of the picture.
With B-Rad not sure what is real and what isn't, he is alternately scared and full of bravado while in the ghetto. The movie's biggest disappointment comes in a rap showdown that tries to poke fun at a similar scene in 8 MILE. The one in MALIBU'S MOST WANTED is just too short and too underwritten. Rather than being the story's highlight, it becomes a scene that should have been left on the cutting room floor.
"You say one more line, and I'm going to smoke myself," one gun-toting bad guy tells B-Rad when he won't shut up with his obnoxious rhymes. You'll probably think the same thing many times during the movie. But, even if much doesn't work in MALIBU'S MOST WANTED, what does is fun.
MALIBU'S MOST WANTED runs 1:20. It is rated PG-13 for "sexual humor, language and violence" and would be acceptable for teenagers.
My son Jeffrey, age 14, thought the movie started off slowly but eventually picked up, with the ending part being the best. Overall, he gave it ** 1/2.
The film opens nationwide in the United States on Friday, April 18, 2003. In the Silicon Valley, it will be showing at the AMC and the Century theaters.
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