Undercover Brother: Movie & DVD Review (2002)

(Originally published 2002)

When it comes to beating the Man at his own game, Malcolm D. Lee’s "Undercover Brother" packs a righteous punch. Universal released the film four weeks before "Austin Powers in Goldmember," which is no accident but a direct attempt to goose a box-office conspiracy.

The film, from a screenplay John Ridley and Michael McCullers adapted from Ridley's popular Internet cartoon series is a parody of the blaxploitation films of the 1970s.

For anyone who has seen "Blacula," "Watermelon Man" and especially "Cleopatra Jones," which features Tamara Dobson as a towering "connoisseur of freedom who handles a car like a gun, a gun like a man, and men like Cleopatra--Cleopatra Jones, that is," that might sound redundant considering the blaxploitation movement ultimately came to spoof itself.

But mirroring Keenan Ivory Wayans’ 1988 film "I'm Gonna Git You Sucka," Lee remains true to the core of what the movement was all about: A black hero glamorously fighting crime to the funkadelic sounds of a terrific soundtrack.

The crime "Brother" explores is one committed against black culture--which, according to an underground agency called the B.R.O.T.H.E.R.H.O.O.D., has eroded over the years thanks to such pop-culture nuisances as Urkel, Mr. T and the sight of Dennis Rodman in a wedding dress.

Further troubling the B.R.O.T.H.E.R.H.O.O.D.’s colorful team of crime fighters--Smart Brother (Gary Anthony), Conspiracy Brother (David Chappelle), the Chief (Chi McBride), and Sistah Girl (Aunjanue Ellis) among them--is that a black presidential candidate (Billy Dee Williams) has mysteriously decided to stop running for office and open a chain of fried chicken restaurants that serves, among other things, Nappy Meals.

Who’s behind it all? Naturally, The Man, an unseen white guy with an evil henchman in Mr. Feather (Chris Kattan) and a potent vixen in the impossibly curvaceous sexpot, White She Devil (Denise Richards).

As convoluted as the plot sounds, Lee breezes through much of it with an excellent cast and the glue of Eddie Griffin’s performance as Undercover Brother, an ultra-smooth, retro-‘70s “Robin Hood from the ‘hood” who drives a gold Cadillac convertible, sports an enormous Afro and wears platform shoes that truly live up to their name. Hired by the B.R.O.T.H.E.R.H.O.O.D. to help put a stop to The Man’s plan, “Operation Whitewash,” Undercover Brother unleashes his kung-fu moves and deadly Afro picks in a film that’s impossible not to like even when some of its jokes--which shrewdly skewer both black and white stereotypes--fall flat.

Grade: B