Undercover Brother Review
by Jonathan F. Richards (moviecritic AT prodigy DOT net)June 5th, 2002
IN THE DARK/Jonathan Richards
UNDERCOVER BROTHER
Directed by Malcolm D. Lee
PG-13, 86 minutes
***
There's a nefarious game afoot. The dignity of the white race is under attack. The sanctity of mayonnaise, hush puppies, and the crew neck sweater is threatened. They're laughing at us! This is a job for Honky Critic.
Actually, Undercover Brother is an equal opportunity offender, a disser of both black and white (adjusted for affirmative action) with such high-spirited good humor that it would take a mighty thin skin to feel the pain. Director Malcolm D. Lee (The Best Man, and Spike's cousin) and screenwriters John Ridley (Three Kings) and Michael McCullers (Austin Powers 2 and 3) have scattered the jokes with the precision of a farmer throwing corn to chickens. The result is a few eggs laid, but there's an awful lot of cackling as well.
The plot is built on a ridiculously far-fetched premise: a black national hero, General Boutwell (Billy Dee Williams) is set to enter presidential politics....as a Republican! He's lighting up the numbers in the polls ("And not just in urban areas," gush the white TV news anchors, who add "He's so well-spoken!") Then at his press conference Gen. Boutwell announces not the launching of a presidential candidacy, but the launching of a chain of fast-food fried chicken reataurants.
At B.R.O.T.H.E.R.H.O.O.D., a secret organization dedicated to fighting for truth, justice, and the African-American way, they can't believe it. They recognize the insidious hand of The Man. B.R.O.T.H.E.R.H.O.O.D., an acronym apparently too long to explain, is headed by The Chief (Chi McBride), who has a framed photo of Danny Glover on his wall. His operatives have names like Smurfs or Spice Girls: there's Smart Brother (Gary Anthony Williams), the computer genius with an encyclopedic mind, and Conspiracy Brother (stand-up comic Dave Chappelle), who sees whitey's conspiratorial hand everywhere ("I see white people!") -- though even he can't swallow the idea that O.J. was really innocent. There's Sistah Girl (Aunjanue Ellis), the outfit's top field agent, a tough-as-nails, hot-as-chile bundle of kung-fu beauty. And there's Lance (Neil Patrick Harris), the token white office boy.
But for the Boutwell case, the B.R.O.T.H.E.R.H.O.O.D. needs new blood. They recruit Undercover Brother (Eddie Griffin), the crusading free-lance Robin Hood of the 'hood, a cross between Superfly and Maxwell Smart, an Afro-topped, bell-bottomed barrel of funk, fishtailing out of the '70s in his souped-up gold Cadillac to fight injustice, tuna salad on white, and The Man.
They have good reason to suspect The Man, a shadowy Caucasian menace who appears only in silhouette via big-screen television monitor to deliver instructions to his top henchman, Mr. Feather (SNL's Chris Kattan). Those instructions are originally to kill Boutwell in order to ensure the continuity of whiteness in the White House, but when Feather reveals the existence of a brainwashing drug that will make the general, and all other black people, do The Man's bidding, they go that route instead.
Undercover Brother must infiltrate The Man's organization to foil the plot. To prepare, he's drilled by the Brothers in honky eating (white bread and mayo) and cultural ("Riverdance" and Michael Bolton) habits. When he can successfully answer a "Friends" trivia question, the brother is ready to go undercover. Dressed like Pat Boone, with his three-foot Afro flattened under a nappy wig, and using the name Anton Jackson, he gets a job with The Man's Multinational Corporation. But he's found out by Feather, who counterattacks with the secret weapon no black man can resist: White She-Devil (blonde babe Denise Richards, more convincing here than she was as a nuclear physicist in the Bond movie.) The action is fierce - a low-speed chase at the country club in golf carts, a catfight between Sistah Girl and White She-Devil that ends in a shower scene to make you forget Psycho. But when Feather and his minions try to inject the Godfather of Soul, James Brown, with the Uncle Tom drug, the madness has gone far enough.
The movie, which is based on Ridley's internet cartoon series, pays comic dues to the Blaxploitation movies of a generation ago. In a quick narrative prologue, it traces the downslide of African-American culture from Martin Luther King to Dennis Rodman. The soundtrack is packed with soul standards (the CD probably won't include Anton's karaoke rendition of "Ebony and Ivory".) Lee and the writers unleash a constant barrage of cultural gags, some of which undoubtedly went over the head of Honky Critic. But not to lose heart. There's more than enough to laugh at in this free-for-all send-up of racial stereotypes, and Lee wraps the whole thing up in a brisk 86 minutes. Eddie Griffin, who has done second banana work prior to this, thrives on the challenge of top billing. He gets good support, especially from Chappelle. And Kattan's Mr. Feather is inspired - he's an ultra-white white man fighting to control his vestigial wanna-be black hipster, who keeps struggling to emerge like Dr. Strangelove's inner Nazi. Feather's fate at the end seems decisive enough, but one can only hope and trust the writers will find him a way out of it to make him available for the inevitable and anticipated sequel.
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