When I read the title for the first time and saw that this was a comedy, I already knew that I shouldn't expect too much of this movie. Not that I was convinced that the overall quality wouldn't be any good, I just knew that I didn't have to expect the most original story line. But that's OK. When it comes to comedies, I do not always need very intellectual dialogs, a lot of special camera points,... All I want then are some good laughs and that's exactly what this movie gave me.
When a black candidate runs for president, 'The Man' tries to derail his campaign. 'The Man' runs a group of white people who will do anything to protect their own values from other (read black) influences. But now he may have found his match. Anton Jackson is an African-American man who seems harmless, but who works as an undercover agent for a secret all-black Brotherhood. Undercover Brother - that's his real name - will have to infiltrate in the world of the white people in order to prevent The Man's evil plans...
If you have to explain someone where to situate this movie, than I would call it a black version of Austin Powers. A guy who still seems to live in the seventies, who appears to be a secret agent, the costumes,... there are plenty of similarities between the two movies. The main difference this time is that the main character isn't white, but black.
Most of the time the humor in this movie is exactly based on that aspect. The differences between black and white are constantly used as a source of inspiration. Jokes about white people who all like mayonnaise while the black don't, about the fact that the black people have 'soul' and the white don't,... can be found all over the movie. And I must say that a lot of them were really good. OK, not everything in this movie worked that well, but overall the humor was OK. Also OK was the acting. Eddie Griffin was very nice as Undercover Brother / Anton Jackson, Aunjanue Ellis did a good job as Sistah Girl and Denise Richards was very lovely as White She Devil. But those are only a couple of the actors that played a major role in this movie. All other actors did a nice job as well of course.
Overall this movie was OK, although the story was sometimes a bit too shallow to make this movie really work. Still, that wasn't too much a problem, because I still had a good time with all the racially inspired jokes. I give this movie a 6.5/10 for that.
When a black candidate runs for president, 'The Man' tries to derail his campaign. 'The Man' runs a group of white people who will do anything to protect their own values from other (read black) influences. But now he may have found his match. Anton Jackson is an African-American man who seems harmless, but who works as an undercover agent for a secret all-black Brotherhood. Undercover Brother - that's his real name - will have to infiltrate in the world of the white people in order to prevent The Man's evil plans...
If you have to explain someone where to situate this movie, than I would call it a black version of Austin Powers. A guy who still seems to live in the seventies, who appears to be a secret agent, the costumes,... there are plenty of similarities between the two movies. The main difference this time is that the main character isn't white, but black.
Most of the time the humor in this movie is exactly based on that aspect. The differences between black and white are constantly used as a source of inspiration. Jokes about white people who all like mayonnaise while the black don't, about the fact that the black people have 'soul' and the white don't,... can be found all over the movie. And I must say that a lot of them were really good. OK, not everything in this movie worked that well, but overall the humor was OK. Also OK was the acting. Eddie Griffin was very nice as Undercover Brother / Anton Jackson, Aunjanue Ellis did a good job as Sistah Girl and Denise Richards was very lovely as White She Devil. But those are only a couple of the actors that played a major role in this movie. All other actors did a nice job as well of course.
Overall this movie was OK, although the story was sometimes a bit too shallow to make this movie really work. Still, that wasn't too much a problem, because I still had a good time with all the racially inspired jokes. I give this movie a 6.5/10 for that.