Undercover Brother


Undercover Brother not only parodies James Bond-like spy movies, but also movies that parody them, like Austin Powers. Just think of Anton Jackson, aka Undercover Brother (Eddie Griffin), as Austin Powers with a bad-arse attitude.

To understand Undercover Brother, I think it helps to also see Bamboozled. I can never get that movie out of my head every time I see films like this, movies ostensibly about black people made for white people. But there I go again with classifications that do no justice to the B.R.O.T.H.E.R.H.O.O.D., an organisation dedicated to the fighting the (white and racist) Man. The B.R.O.T.H.E.R.H.O.O.D. recruits Anton to find out why a leading black political candidate has suddenly gone from wanting to run for President to selling fried chicken (a la Kenny Rogers).

Undercover Brother arrives at at time when there is a lot of integration of black and white cultures, as I mentioned earlier in films like 3 Strikes. In my view, there's never enough of that happening (best of many worlds), but the progress being made in this country, in all walks of life, is encouraging.

The choice of actors is quite apt, with Eddie Griffin doing a decent job. Dave Chapelle gets some decent lines as the paranoid Conspiracy Brother. Chris Kattan is particularly funny, parodying Dr. Evil, as the assistant to the Man bitten by the black culture bug.

There are a lot of good gags in the film, including a golf-cart race, the "white-washing" Anton has to go through to go on his mission, the cat fight between the two attractive females re-uniting blacks and whites (nothing like a little bit of misogyny to bond everyone together). Worth seeing on the big screen.


Movie ramblings || Ram Samudrala || me@ram.org