Plot Details: This opinion reveals minor details about the movie's plot.

What up, my brothas! Welcome to my Black Christmas (and I don't mean Q'Uanz'hah, or whatever the hell it is) write off. Come celebrate the best and worst of hard hitting, hard lovin', two fisted, no nonsense blaxploitation flicks ever offered by Hollywood (and of course from outside the studio system, too). The sleazy, the exploitative, the classics, the forgotten and the crap - all examined over the 12 days of Christmas. However, with this comes a disclaimer:

WARNING! Absolutely no one under 18 admitted to this review!

No, seriously. While I do try and keep in mind that epinions is an all-ages site and do try to mind my manners appropriately, there's no point in being polite when discussing movies like these. Salty language may and will creep in from time to time.

And with that, on to UNDERCOVER BROTHER! Can you dig it?

With the success of genre spoof films in recent years (The various Austin Powers films, Scary Movie and the like), it was only evitable that the rich, fertile ground of the seventies blaxploitation genre would be eventually tapped. You could even say that films like Shaft, Black Belt Jones and Boss Nigger are so far over the top to be parodies themselves - but as goofy as the seventies were, the movies were played reasonably straight (Dolomite and his kin excluded).

Undercover Brother, on the other had set out to not only goof on (and lovingly pay homage to) the blaxploitation genre, but be out and out funny too. While not quite the Airplane! school of "throw EVERYTHING to the wall and lets see what sticks" comedy writing, Undercover Brother hits you with a rapid fire barrage of jokes. Joke falls flat? Wait 10 seconds for the next one.

The story is rather simple, more a framework for the jokes and set pieces (not that story was ever this genre's strongpoint anyway). An underground operation, called B.R.O.T.H.E.R.H.O.O.D is trying to thwart The Man (a lone Caucasian shrouded in darkness) and his plan of a keeping Tha' Brotha down, through the use of a retired general (brilliantly played by Billy Dee "Colt 45" Williams) poised to run for president and a fast food fried chicken chain. You see, The Man has tainted the fried chicken with a powerful mind control drug that will ruin the black man.

At the head of the B.R.O.T.H.E.R.H.O.O.D. operation, we have, of course Undercover Brother (Eddie Griffin, the guy from. . . um well, the first 5 minutes of Armageddon), a funky soul brother straight from the 70's complete with gigantic fro, black power medallion, polyester shirts with wide collars and bell bottoms. Other operatives of the B.R.O.T.H.E.R.H.O.O.D include Conspiracy Brother, Sistah Girl, and Smart Brother. Heading the operation is The Chief (who, while not six weeks away from retirement, is definitely "getting too old for this shit") and his assistant, Lance the Intern (in an excellent casting move, they found whitest white guy on the planet: Neil Patrick Harris, who gives his best performance since playing a psychic Nazi in Starship Troopers)

Working for The Man is Mr. Feather, played by the completely non-threatening Chris Kattan, an army of nameless White goons and White She-Devil, played by Denise Richards - who while not the deepest actress in Hollywood was probably thrilled to get to play to type, an incredibly hawt looking airhead, and take the roll beyond type and straight into caricature. Sure she's vapid and poorly acted - but that's what the character was supposed to be: a bubble headed vixen in a tight leather catsuit.

And so the cat and mouse goes back and forth between The Man and the B.R.O.T.H.E.R.H.O.O.D - traps and escapes, goons and car chases, obvious set ups and set pieces until The Man is put down, Feather gets his comeuppance, and Undercover Brother gets some luvin. Roll credits.

On the surface, you could call this film racist - but it comes from the same place that Blazing Saddles came from: intelligent, subversive satire. The white guys are stupid, the black guys are over the top camp and nobody is safe from the comical bludgeoning of the film. Stereotypes on all sides are made fun of and only a total Politically Correct freak would get offended.

The other great thing about Undercover Brother? It's so refreshing to get a comedy that's actually genuinely funny. Sure, some of the jokes fall flat, but more often than not it works. And some of the movie's humor is so stupid and ridiculous that it actually goes back around to become brilliant. I should point out that while often stupid, the movie is thankfully devoid of feces, fat-suits and other lowest-common-denominator grotesque humor that seems to permeate other flicks of this caliber.

Oh, and did I mention that Eddie Griffin is actually funny in this film? And it's not only him, but the rest of the cast - Dave Chappelle gets all the best lines for his over the top paranoid delusions and both Denise Richards and Chris Kattan are surprisingly humorous as well.

Speaking of paying homage to blaxploitation, I can't a couple of points slide past without comment. The soundtrack, made up of 1970's funk and disco classics, kicks major ass - Average White Band, James Brown (who also gets a on-screen cameo), George Clinton and Parliament, The Commodores, Kool and the Gang, The O'Jays, Wild Cherry, Michael Jackson, and Rick James - just to name a few artists that I could remember off the top of my head. It's as if Motown exploded and the fallout coated the film shoot with a heavy dusting of soul power. The other is the camera work - the split screen cinematography and camera work is so "seventies" that the movie could have played as-is in any grindhouse on 42nd street without anyone blinking an eye.

Solid!

RUDY RAY MOORE OR PAM GRIER? No (but the outtakes have Jim Kelly, which is almost as good)
BREASTS ON DISPLAY: 0
A BRUTHA GETS SOME: 1 time
MUSICAL NUMBERS: 1 (karaoke)
EXPLOSIONS: 4
ROUNDS FIRED: 128
HANDRAIL DEATHS: 0
CAR CHASES: 1 (a golf cart, but close enough)
AFROS: 5
F BOMBS DROPPED: 5
WHITEYS THAT GET IT: 28
BEST LINE: This is a great day for black people of all races.
SEVENTIES FASHION SENSIBILITIES: 98%
SOUL POWER 100%

THE DVD
There is nothing bad to say about the film's presentation. The DVD sports a gorgeous anamorphic widescreen print - no easy job considering the obnoxious colors and patterns from the seventies on display. We also get a nice DTS dolby digital surround sound track. In short, it looks and sounds great.

THE EXTRAS
Universal loads this disc up with all kinds of funky extras. We get an alternate ending (which we get a bit of in the credits of the main show), a blooper reel, the original internet shorts that served as the film's inspiration, a half hour of deleted scenes (deleted for a reason - they're not that good, aside from the Jim "I got whupped by Bruce Lee" Kelly cameo), music videos from Snoop Dogg and Bootsy Collins (solid!).

Then we get a 30-minute "making-of" featurette that really shows off the infectious fun the players and filmmakers had while shooting, and two commentary tracks from Eddie Griffin and director Malcolm Lee (yeah, Spike Lee's brother). Honestly, I wished they were recorded together - Lee's track is pretty dry and technical while Eddie really needed someone to play off of.

Lastly we get some DVD-rom video games and a handful of theatrical trailers- the Undercover Brother theatrical trailer, trailers for something called Empire and a Rowan Atkinson vehicle called Johnny English (Argh - go back to making Blackadder, damn your eyes!)

All in all, a pretty good package for a movie that slipped under the radar.

THE BOTTOM LINE
Your enjoyment of Undercover Brother will be directly proportional to your appreciation for blaxploitation flicks and if you grew up in the 1970. But since Hollywood seems to have forgotten the art of how to deliver ninety minutes of fun without fart jokes and fat suits, Undercover Brother scores high in my book. My only regret is that the film didn’t do well enough to score a sequel. Ah well.

ON THE TWELVE DAYS OF BLACK CHRISTMAS, MY SOUL BRUTHAS GAVE TO ME. . . .
12) BLACULA
11) JACKIE BROWN
10) THE FINAL COMEDOWN
09) SHAFT IN AFRICA
08) UNDERCOVER BROTHER
07) DOLEMITE
06) BLACK MAMA, WHITE MAMA
05) MEAN JOHHNY BARROWS
04) TROUBLE MAN
03) SUPERFLY
02) THE MACK
And a LADY COCOA in a pear tree. . . .



Recommended: Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Fit for Friday Evening
Suitability For Children: Not suitable for Children of any age