Austin Powers clone it may be, but Undercover Brother delivers hard hitting, stereotype ridden comedy, every bit the equal of the original Powers movie. Yet, the laughs are undeniable, despite the sometimes-annoying lulls that bottom out between them. Undercover Brother IS little more than the black Austin Powers. The comparisons are inevitable, and impossible to ignore. Garbed in full-bodied Afro and slick 70's leather, it's up to Undercover Brother (Eddie Griffin) and the BROTHERHOOD (an organization of black super-spies) to stop "The Man" from further undermining the future of the Black Man.įortunately, Griffin has finally struck gold in a mostly hit and occasionally miss screenplay by Michael McCullers, whose credits, perhaps not surprisingly, include work on the original Austin Powers flick. Now, the Great Black Hope, a Colonel Powell like presidential candidate, has dropped out of the political arena to open a chain of chicken franchises. Since it's peak in the 70's, Black culture has been wussified by the likes of Steve Urkel and Dennis Rodman. Running time: 1 hour, 29 minutes.You see, “The Man” has taken over the system. Screenplay by John Ridley and Michael McCullers, story by John Ridley, based on the Internet series by John Ridley. Executive producers John Ridley, Bill Carraro, Kim Roth. Producers Brian Grazer, Michael Jenkinson, Damon Lee. Jan Stuart is a film critic for Newsday, a Tribune company.Ī Universal Pictures and Imagine Entertainment presentation, released by Universal. Times guidelines: Even if there were a reason to keep your teens away (there’s not), you probably couldn’t. MPAA rating: PG-13, for language, sexual humor, drug content and campy violence. Lee (of the elegant “The Best Man”) keeps it all moving so breathlessly, you don’t have time to fine-tune your PC radar. The inevitable shower-wrestling scene between Sistah Girl and White She Devil represents “Undercover Brother” at its glibbest, but the cast is having such a ball (is this the hippest comedy ensemble since “Young Frankenstein” or what?) and director Malcolm D. Feather (Chris Kattan, riffing on gay villains of ‘70s cinema infamy) and the voluptuous White She Devil (Denise Richards). The object of Conspiracy Brother’s knee-jerk contempt is embodied in the Man’s aide-de-camp, the fey Mr. The film’s most inspired character is Conspiracy Brother (Dave Chappelle, a textbook in comic timing), a pull-string puppet of angry young black man paranoia. The Rodman reference signals the take-no-prisoners esprit of a film that rides roughshod over contemporary black role models ranging from Colin Powell (Billy Dee Williams, as a general who throws in his presidency bid to open a fried chicken chain) to Al Roker (a portly and bespectacled Gary Anthony Ramsay, as Smart Brother). Undercover Brother - Black Mans Kryptonite: When Undercover Brother (Eddie Griffin) infiltrates The Mans operations, Mr. Their target is an evil cell run by the Man, a shadowy white bureaucrat credited with a decline of black cultural identity that reached its nadir with Dennis Rodman. to fight alongside the sultry Sistah Girl (Aunjanue Ellis, in the Cleopatra Jones part). (He surfaces incognito at a conservative country club golf course dressed as a rainbow-colored Rastafarian.) He is recruited by an African American justice organization known as the B.R.O.T.H.E.R.H.O.O.D. The jubilantly upbeat Eddie Griffin sports a panoramic Afro and pork chop sideburns as the Undercover Brother, a crime fighter whose flair for disguise is in keeping with his taste for in-your-face clothes. And how ambivalently many blacks feel about that in return. Unlike the “Scary Movie” films, whose stop-at-nothing jokes were an end unto themselves, this is broad movie spoofing with a point: using the racial divisions and stereotypes manipulated by the “Shaft”-”Super Fly” genre to show how whites came around over the intervening decades to embracing their inner blackness. God knows what’s in that soda, but it is having such a euphoric effect on the drinker and his audience, it couldn’t possibly be legal.Īdapted by John Ridley and Michael McCullers from Ridley’s Internet film series, “Undercover Brother” is a funkadelic fun ride that shrewdly reinvigorates the eye-popping styles and pulpy veneer of ‘70s blaxploitation flicks. This is the dream machine of “Undercover Brother,” a super soul man who wears a matching, two-toned mustard-colored leather jacket and chugs a complementarily tinted soft drink. If you want to see the real pop-culture design statement of the ‘70s, look no further. The Brooklyn Museum might want to consider pulling some of the space it is taking up with “Star Wars” gear and reallocating it to a mustard-colored Cadillac Coupe de Ville that spins like a woozy top when you hit the brakes.
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