Review: Undercover Brother
Undercover Brother may be the funniest movie of the year, or the second funniest considering we have Austin Powers waiting in the wings, but for the first part of summer, Undercover Brother is the funniest movie of the year.
The film’s plot, while approaching the line of ludicrous and offensive, centers around a secret conspiracy in the world to undermine the influence of African-American culture. The group headed by “The Man” is out to tame the farthest reaches of black culture in order to keep things the way there are in the world. Out to stop them is the B.R.O.T.H.E.R.H.O.O.D. (don’t even ask me what it stands for) a group of freedom fighters looking to take out “The Man.” Even for a comedy the plot is paper thin (I call them Kate Moss Plots!). The Brotherhood recruits Undercover Brother to help infiltrate “The Man’s” business practices and uncover the dirt that is going down.
It seems that a prominent African-American general may be running for President and that is the last thing “The Man” wants to see, so they use a mind controlling substance to take over the general’s thoughts and make him open a chain of Fried Chicken Restaurants (get it Colonel, General, see it’s poking fun at KFC!). The Conspirators plan is to use the Fried Chicken to spread the substance to every African-American citizen of the US and successfully purge the political and cultural influences from the United States in whole.
Eddie Griffin stars as Undercover Brother with a great supporting cast in the form of Denise Richards as White She Devil and Chris Kattan as Mr. Feather who, himself, seems to have an overdoes of influence from the hip-hop community. Richards excels as her character and looks as hot as ever in her tight little….uh…err Kattan, who is expected to leave SNL soon after the departure of Will Ferrell, is utterly hilarious as Mr. Feather and shows that even though he doesn’t get lots of screen time on Saturday Night Live, Chris sure is a funny guy.
The movie is funny, there is no doubt about that one. With the playful humor on the differences between the different races, and the types of stereotypically characters portrayed. While everyone in the movie has their moments no one is funnier than Dave Chappelle, he steals the show as Conspiracy Brother and rightfully so, the man is h-i-l-a-r-i-o-u-s.
While never winning any awards for originality, acting, plot, or anything those stuck-up blue-hairs at the Academy look for, the movie is funnier than anything else to come out in a long time, and should only be outshined by New Line’s upcoming entry into the Austin Power’s franchise.