Latex Movie Review: Undercover Brother

Undercover Brother is a parody of the Blaxploitation film, although nowhere as good as Black Dynamite or I'm Gonna Get You Sucka. It began as a series of cartoon viral videos of the same name, written by John Ridley who also wrote the screenplay for this live movie adaption. The title character is played by comedian Eddie Griffin, a freelance agent who sports an Afro and '70s era outfits. Invited to join a black spy organization called B.R.O.T.H.E.R.H.O.O.D. he teams up with a female agent known as Sistah Girl ( Aunjanue Ellis ) and together they attempt to stop a white supremest organization headed by a leader called The Man. B.R.O.T.H.E.R.H.O.O.D. suspects that The Man has hypnotized General Warren Boutwell ( Billy Dee Williams ) who on the day he was to announce his candidacy to be the first black president, instead announces that he is going to open up a chain of fried chicken restaurants. After a few missions infiltrating various white institutions they uncover a plot to distribute a drug to all African Americans that will hypnotize them just like the General and turn them all white ( on the inside at least ). If this sounds more like an episode of Get Smart than a parody of a Blaxploitation film then you are right. The biggest problem with Ridley's script is that very little of the humor comes from it's source material. Instead of gags based on the absurdity found in the typical Blaxploitation formula, we have standard slapstick and gross out gags that could have come from any film. And too much of the movie is devoted to being an action thriller. And that is a shame, because the cast is made up of first class comedians. Aside from Griffin there is Dave Chappell, Chris Kattan, Chi McBride, Gary Anthony Williams and Neil Patrick Harris. And for eye candy there is Denise Richards as White She-Devil.

One gets the feeling that Ridley has never actually sat through a Blaxploitation movie. Undercover Brother is a walking '70s cliche, and much like the big screen adaptions of The Brady Bunch and Starsky & Hutch, he is a man trapped in time. One can't help but compare the movie to the Austin Powers franchise. This joke wears thin almost immediately. The heroes of the original Blaxploitation genre wore the fashions that were popular at the time. If you were to accept films like Purple Rain, Krush Groove, House Party and Friday to be the evolution of the Blaxploitation film then you will know that fashions changed. I am sure that if Shaft movies were still being made in the '80s and '90s he would have changed with the times. Clint Eastwood's Dirty Harry continued til 1988's The Dead Pool which did allow a character created in the '70s adapt with the times. Yet this is the fate of all film characters who's respective franchise or genre was limited to a particular decade. Comedy writers take the easy way out and make fun of the decade they were from rather than finding something unique to the character to lampoon. It is a lazy way of writing movies from those who have little imagination. Although at least with Austin Powers the whole point of that series was the culture clash between eras. Movies like The Brady Bunch where characters are inexplicably stuck in a different era to the dismay of those surrounding them are just insulting.

THE SCENE:
At 47 minutes Aunjanue Ellis enters the room wearing a gold leather outfit consisting of pants and vest, and sadly an unflattering multicolored shirt beneath. Two minutes later at 49 minutes Denise Richards removes her grey shirt and pants to reveal a multi layered white latex catsuit beneath. Within a minute both women have a cat fight where they rip off pieces of each other's clothing and eventually end up in a shower practically making out. A very nice scene, but obviously played for laughs. Denise has other outfits worth mentioning. At 52 minutes she changes into a white leather motorcycle jumpsuit. She wears a grayish-purple leather pants and shirt outfit at 1 hour 6 minutes, and in a gag segment during the credits wears yet another grayish-purple leather top. Also worth mentioning, Aunjanue wears an outfit that consists of a frilly black leather shirt and brown leather coat.