White Chicks Movie Review:


The Wayans brothers are desperately trying to get back on track after losing their Scary Movie franchise with a disappointing sequel and having no involvement at all with the third entry. Unfortunately, their new film, White Chicks, is a flat comedy of mistaken identities while poking fun of race and gender.

The whole concept of having two FBI agent brothers, Kevin (Shawn Wayans) and Marcus (Marlon Wayans), going undercover to stop a kidnapping ring as Paris and Nikki Hilton look-alikes is amusing all in itself. However, the joke runs out of gas quickly and the inconsistencies with wardrobe and more than anything the makeup on the two Wayans brothers seems more like a on-going skit from In Living Color, rather than a comedy out in the middle of summer.

White Chicks is a type of film that asks its audience to have a suspension of disbelief, which is understandable in terms of the Wayans brothers’ nature. However, the script, which is credited to a total of six writers builds up so much of a kidnapping plot that it is hard to falter the film when the holes that are left with no focus or resolution.

After screwing up a huge sting operation, FBI partners/brothers Marcus and Kevin are given one last assignment to protect two spoiled rich white sisters named Brittany (Maitland Ward) and Tiffany Wilson (Anne Dudek), whom are believed to be a next in line for a wanted kidnapper. As the two agents escort the Wilson sisters to the Hamptons for a glamorous weekend, a car accident leaves the girls in an intolerable state due to one’s cut to the forehead and the other’s busted lip. Not wanting to lose their job, Marcus and Kevin bring in latex experts to apply them with face masks and blond wigs, as well as bright blue contacts (though never touched on in the film). Leaving the snobbish sisters in a hotel, the two young black agents head to the Hamptons as the white Brittany and Tiffany. After meeting their similar friends and nemesis sisters, the two agents are constantly tested not blow their cover by any means necessary.

Besides a few typical bodily function gags, White Chicks does not offer up too many laughs. The first and last half-hour of the film are painfully boring, which is pretty embarrassing for a comedy. The Wayans brothers scored big with the first Scary Movie and seemed to be masters of their craft during their run of In Living Color, but White Chicks just does not work. It wants to aggressively touch on race and gender in a comedic and light-hearted way, but it never comes effectively close. White Chicks is something one would expect from the Wayans brothers, including their re-occurring theme of horrible editing and even taking few spoofs at other films (including Blazing Saddles and Carrie). The oldest brother Keenan Ivory Wayans directed the film from a script that all three brothers took a hand at.

On top of not being that funny and the minefield of attempted plot points, the biggest problem with the film is the believability of the Wayans as the two white chicks themselves. Looking like robotic aliens with terrible latex, unbrushed curves, and nearly a foot taller than the actual white chicks, every other person in the film sees these two FBI agents as the real Brittany and Tiffany without any question. The Wayans’ created white chicks have absolutely no resemblance at all to the two actresses playing the brainless twin sisters. Perhaps the Wayans should have thought about enlisting the services of makeup master Rick Baker to work on this film.

The performances in the film are what one would expect. Marlon Wayans is actually more patient, but still becomes obnoxious on occasion as Marcus. As Kevin, Shawn Wayans is still a step behind his brother, even though he does stretch his abilities with some romantic moments in the film. All of the spoiled socialites in the film, which include Jamie King, are suitable in their roles. Lastly, Terry Crews, who is usually cast as the muscle in a film delivers a humorous performance as a popular basketball player that has a interest in Marcus’ Tiffany.

A better comedy of this nature that nobody saw because it had no lead stars was the 1991 film True Identity, which had a struggling black comedian donning makeup as a Italian hitman to save his life from the Mafia. The suitable raunchiness of the Wayans brothers’ antics are tone down a bit for White Chicks, even though the moments of toilet humor are the best in the film. The whole concept of having two black FBI agents going undercover as two white chicks that are molded after the Hilton sisters seemed to be something workable. However, the film just misses and is pretty flaky, even if you dismiss the struggling script.

Grade: C-

06/23/04

Joseph Tucker

The Wayans brothers are gifted actors-filmmakers, so why is it that they continually make lazy, unchallenging movies? Even in a mess like this you can see their talent oozing out of the seams, but it's so weakly constructed that it hurts.

Kevin and Marcus (Shawn and Marlon) are FBI agents who love donning outrageous disguises to break their cases ... but they're still losers. Assigned a lowly job escorting spoiled teen socialites (Ward and Dudek), they end up impersonating them on the New York scene--with the help of rather a lot of make-up, of course--facing off against the girls' sworn enemies (King and Daniel) and racing against two rival agents (Munro and Velez) to solve the case.

The basic premise is funny, in a silly movie sort of way: Two black male Feds pretend to be mini-skirted white girls. In this collagen-infused era, they might get away with the stiff-faced make-up. And the cast is charming and entertaining. So why does the story throw logic out the window simply to plunge our clumsy heroes into one chaotic bit of slapstick after another without trying to make sense at all? For example, it obviously takes hours to apply these all-body disguises, yet the script requires them to make frequent instantaneous transformations. Duh! And it's simply not funny enough for us to suspend our disbelief.

The army of writers were clearly using Some Like It Hot as a blueprint, so even when Kevin is a man on the prowl, he's pretending to be someone else. But the script isn't clever enough to sustain even this, relying on far too many cheap gags. And for a film about racial and gender issues, there's both no observational humour and far too much racist/sexist stereotyping. But the filmmakers obviously didn't worry about these things. They just wanted to make a bit of stupid fluff. But truly entertaining fluff requires a lot more effort than this. And we know the Wayans brothers have it in them to do much better.

Rich Cline

After their last case went disastrously wrong, FBI agents Kevin Copeland (Shawn Wayans) and Marcus Copeland (Marlon Wayans) are assigned babysitting duties for possible kidnap victim’s hotel heiresses the Wilson sisters. But when the girls refuse to go to the Hampton’s, the disgraced agents see this as their chance to get back in the FBI’s good graces and call in the agency’s top undercover makeup artists. Now Kevin and Marcus are Brittany and Tiffany and all they have to do is fit in with the rest of the rich and famous.

If you think that two black comedic actors dressing up as two high society, white girls will be a recipe for hilarity then you are going to be extremely disappointed.

When the poster for the movie actually says “From the makers of Scary Movie” alarm bells should instantly start ringing in your head warning you that this is going to be an appalling film. Trying to move away from parody and vulgarity, White Chicks is a concerted effort by the Wayans clan to make inroads in the mainstream market. The movie tries to mix a grandiose plot device with an underlying message of understanding women but just becomes irritating and clichéd.

By trying to bring down their approach from their usual over the top, rude level, the Wayans’ fails dramatically in trying to reach the audience that they are aiming for. You can’t figure out who they are trying to capture, as they are alienating the fans they already have and missing completely the people they are trying to gain. White Chicks is comedy at its most basic and the Wayans just don’t know how to raise it any higher than that. A one gag premise is dragged kicking and screaming through the film’s 97 minutes and none of it is original or at all interesting.

Shawn and Marlon Wayans are not bad comedic actors. Anyone who has seen Marlon in ‘The Lady Killers’ will know that given the right script he can actually provide a good quality performance but with this very basic script, he only gets the chance to produce a character that is one-dimensional and clichéd. Shawn doesn’t fair much better either. When the pair are playing the Wilson sisters, they try their best to caricature certain, very famous, hotel heiresses but a combination of appalling makeup effects and awful dialogue make the characters extremely repugnant. They might be trying to create a pair of unlikeable, toffee-nosed socialites but even the ‘black man in a white man’s world’ plot can’t save this from disaster.

The only plus side is some of the supporting cast. Jaime King, Brittany Daniel, Busy Philipps, Jessica Cauffiel, Maitland Ward and Anne Dudek all play the infighting, bitchy socialites extremely well. King and Daniel are especially good as the Wilson’s main rivals, the Vandergeld sisters.

White Chicks is a truly appalling attempt by the Wayans to become more mainstream. Full of clichés and no originality the film becomes almost painful to watch as it cements the opinion that the Brothers should go their separate ways and start with other more creative filmmakers.

Star Rating = *

Jamie Kelwick

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