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Undercover brother cadillac7/1/2023 ![]() ![]() He knows to portray Jackson not as a 70s blaxploitation character but as someone raised on those characters and aspires to emulate them. Eddie Griffin as Undercover Brother hits all the right notes. Now that’s out of the way, can I just reiterate that this movie is hilarious? And that may be because everyone, and I mean everyone, fully commits to their roles. Although both are ostensibly about a Black icon fighting different iterations of The Man, the personification of white corporatism, Pootie Tang casts him, somewhat troublingly, as a faux-pidgin-speaking entertainer, Undercover Brother presents him and the team behind him as explicitly pro-Black and fighting inequality.Īnd, personally, I find that solid and dy-no-mite. I won’t spend this entire review comparing films because, in a way, both have different target audiences despite having vaguely similar premises. If the jokes are admittedly less innovative, the fact there’s a higher frequency of jokes that actually land makes up for this. Feather") quite irritating in other films, their shtick totally works in "Undercover Brother." Fast, funny, and an utterly silly good time, "Undercover Brother" is - in the words of its hero - "Solid.If Undercover Brother is more conventional and formulaic in its structure than Pootie Tang, that’s because, well, it actually has a structure. Denise Richards looks amazing in a white leather catsuit (her catfight scene with "Sistah Girl" is worth the price of the DVD all by itself), and oddly enough, even though I usually find Eddie Griffin and Chris Kattan (who plays The Man's flunky, "Mr. The cast is excellent, especially Dave Chapelle as the eternally paranoid agent "Conspiracy Brother," and the always welcome Chi McBride as the long-suffering "Chief" of The B.R.O.T.H.E.R.H.O.O.D. I have seen a lot of discussion on IMDb about this film being "racist" towards whites, but to be honest, I found "Undercover Brother" to be an equal opportunity offender, with no stereotype about blacks OR whites going un-skewered. agents Sistah Girl, Conspiracy Brother, Smart Brother, and "Lance" (Neil Patrick Harris in a hilarious turn as the lone white member of the group - he got his internship through - what else? - affirmative action), Undercover Brother infiltrates The Man's organization to destroy the plot, though he nearly becomes a victim of their most potent weapon, the gorgeous Denise Richards, aka "White She-Devil" (whom "The Man" calls "Black Man's Kryptonite.") along the way. Ably assisted by fellow B.R.O.T.H.E.R.H.O.O.D. Now rather than run for the White House, he runs a nationwide Fried Chicken chain instead. when a black war hero (Billy Dee Williams)'s plans to run for President are derailed by a mind control drug designed by The Man. Normally a lone wolf, he is drafted into the B.R.O.T.H.E.R.H.O.O.D. Eddie Griffin stars as Undercover Brother, a funky '70s throwback hero with a huge Afro and platform shoes, who drives around in a pimped-out Caddy performing acts of Kung-Fu derring-do to aid the African American cause. Fortunately, the black community has its own underground group, known as "The B.R.O.T.H.E.R.H.O.O.D." created to undermine The Man's plans to "Whitewash" the world. As the film opens, we are filled in on the ongoing battle between the black community and a super secret organization known as "The Man," who works tirelessly to negate African-American influence on the world at large. ![]() Though it's basically a "blaxploited" version of the "Austin Powers" concept, "Undercover Brother" is funny enough to be enjoyable on its own merits. I first saw "Undercover Brother" on cable a few years ago and since then it's become one of my favorite comedies of recent years. ![]()
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