Black Austin Powers

Malcolm D Lee's Undercover Brother is a hit-and-miss burlesque of blaxploitation movies of the Seventies, adapted from an internet cartoon series.

Eddie Griffin stars as the unbelievably funky, leather-andgoldchain-garbed eponymous badaaass recruited by the secret B.R.O.T.H.E.R.H.O.O.D, dedicated to preserving African-American lifestyles.

They've come under threat from a four-star black general, a genial Colin Powell lampoon, who sets up a press conference where everyone thinks he is going to say he will run for the White House. Instead, he announces he's opening a friedchicken restaurant chain.

Griffin goes undercover, as a dreadlocked golf caddy, then a short-order chef, who is put through a brainwashing course to wean him on to Caucasian food.

Finally, the enemy send out their secret weapon, a pureblonde hit girl (Denise Richards) called White She-Devil. She knows his ethnic weaknesses. She seduces him with white

man's mayonnaise instead of hot sauce on his club sandwich, and puts him in J Crew corduroys and pastel sweaters and has him looking like a pattern-plate Bill Cosby before he regains his cool.

The film's subtext, about folk who are black outside but pure white bread within is studded with some nice jabs at extant race prejudice and the way the entertainment industry sells its black brethren the token roles instead of the star ones. "John Singleton is going to remake Driving Miss Daisy," is one of the better quips; and the white intern who becomes an activist after viewing Roots on tape is another.

Griffin is a fresher-mouthed Eddie Murphy-type, with a huge blow-out Afro and pork-chop sideburns and a secret armoury of Bond-style gadgets, including, naturally, lifts in his shoes to gain status and "respect" and elevate him 10 feet in the air to effect his escape.

The retro design of the film is frequently the best joke: the fuzzballs hanging off the rearview mirror on the hero's Seventies Cadillac, or the sheer tonnage of polyester on folks' backs. It's all a bit like a cut-down Austin Powers done from the black viewpoint.

A little over-long and frequently over the top, but good natured, as well as shrewd enough to cultivate a cross-racial appeal.

Undercover Brother
Cert: cert12A