Wayans' 'White Chicks' is a pale effort indeed

Wednesday, June 23, 2004

By SEAN AXMAKER
SPECIAL TO THE POST-INTELLIGENCER

Blundering African American FBI agents Kevin (Shawn Wayans) and Marcus (Marlon Wayans) go dumb blonde in the ultimate undercover gig. Under pounds of latex and lily-white pancake makeup, they titter, squeal and flap their hands in girlish excitement to play twentysomething celebutantes Tiffany and Brittany Wilson, empty-headed heiresses in the Paris Hilton mold.

MOVIE REVIEW

WHITE CHICKS

DIRECTOR: Keenan Ivory Wayans

CAST: Shawn Wayans,

Marlon Wayans, Jaime King,

Frankie Faison

RUNNING TIME: 105 minutes

RATING: PG-13 for crude and sexual humor, language and some drug content

WHERE: Auburn 17, Bella Botega 11, Crossroads 8, Everett 8, Factoria, Federal Way, Galleria 11, Grand Cinemas, Meridian 10, Metro, Mountlake 9, Oak Tree, Parkway Plaza 12, Renton Village 8, Valley Drive-In, Woodinville 12

GRADE: C

Director Keenan Ivory Wayans and his brothers, co-writers Shawn and Marlon, are veterans of the sketch comedy series "In Living Color," and at times this feels like a feature-length sketch: "Some Like It Hot" with a white-face twist.

Marlon plays Jack Lemmon to Shawn's Tony Curtis, dodging the affections of a black sports superstar with a taste for white girls, while Shawn ditches the foam to woo a reporter.

Meanwhile, they both bond with their gal pals, take on a pair of catty debutante nemeses and taunt their fellow undercover agents. Oh, yes, they also take time out to investigate a kidnapping ring.

The fact that these brawny boys look more like play-dough practice dummies at a collagen clinic than real people -- let alone a pair of famous socialites at an exclusive Hamptons function -- seems to be lost on everyone but the audience. Best friends pajama party with them; paparazzi snap away as they clomp down the fashion show runway with the grace of camels; and men get weak in the knees staring at the puffy, clammy faces of these creatures from the white lagoon.

The boys have a ball prancing through the ultimate drag revue, but have no personality when they are out of costume, and the film loses its nerve in a cascade of soggy happy endings drenched in a syrupy score.

The Wayans aren't going for "Tootsie" here, just straight up caricature. This is less a parody, however, than a high-concept farce built on lazy, low-concept fart jokes, crotch-shot slapstick and so many perverse sexual references that you'll wonder how it escaped an R rating.

For a film that uses race, class and sexual stereotypes as the starting point, this is disappointingly skin deep.

Sean Axmaker is a movie reviewer and free-lance film writer based in Seattle. He can be reached via e-mail at seanax@hotmail.com.