Starring: Shawn Wayans, Marlon Wayans, Jaime King, Frankie Faison, Lochlyn Munro, John Heard, Busy Phillips, Terry Crews, Brittany Daniel, Eddie Velez, Jessica Cauffiel, Maitland Ward, Anne Dudek, Rochelle Aytes, Jennifer Carpenter

Director: Keenan Ivory Wayans

Running Time: 109 minutes

Comedy, Crime

Seeing slapstick siblings Shawn and Marlon Wayans dolled up to look like passable socialite white girls is a pretty unnerving experience, but far, far scarier is the fact that it took SIX writers to dream up this middle-ranking sex-swap farce. You can't help but wonder how many of them it would have taken to come up with a comedy that actually contained some humour stretching beyond yelling, dancing, singing and farting.

Under the directorship of big bro Keenan, the Wayans boys play bungling FBI agents Kevin and Marcus Copeland. Their latest assignment involves chaperoning a couple of It Girls (Maitland Ward and Anne Dudek) to a weekend-long party in the Hamptons, where inside intelligence has predicted a kidnapping-attempt is going to take place. But, via the most unbelievable set of circumstances, the girls are unable to make it - so our hapless heroes take it upon themselves to go in their places. Of course, that involves transforming themselves from six-foot-plus black guys into a pair of white, blonde, wannabe Hilton sisters. Sounds easy enough, right?

If you've ever seen gender-switch comedies like 'Tootsie' or 'Mrs Doubtfire' then you'll know how most of it works. This sort of scenario always involves a bit of suspended disbelief (nobody ever suspects a thing, do they?), but asking us to believe that their friends think them to be the same two girls they've known for years really is stretching things a little.

There's no invention involved here. The film takes a clutch of crude tried-and-tested stereotypes and clichés and runs with them for all they're worth. To the Wayans' credit, they play to their strengths by putting their seemingly limitless energy ahead of their distinctly limited material, and to be fair they're not all that far from pulling it off. I did chuckle a couple of times, and the youngsters sitting behind me never seemed to tire of all those fart gags - but then again, youngsters never do.

Cast: Shawn Wayans, Marlon Wayans, Maitland Ward, Anne Dudek, Jaime King, Brittany Daniel, Busy Philipps, Terry Crews, Faune Chambers, Jennifer Carpenter  

  
 



Plot: After messing up a major drug bust in New York City, two African American FBI agents (who are also brothers), Marcus and Kevin Copeland (Shawn and Marlon Wayans), try to impress their boss by volunteering to protect the Wilton Sisters, Tiffany (Dudek) and Brittany (Ward), the heiresses of a hotel empire, from a kidnapping scheme during a short trip from JFK to the Hamptons. Deciding to change the strategy drastically, the brothers use themselves as bait, wearing lots of pale makeup and dresses to pass as the Wilton sisters, while the real sisters are hidden away, safe from harm. Now, the agents just have to convince the world (including their coworkers who are now protecting *them* and the Wiltons' friends and family) that they're actually young, rich, white heiresses.

 


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Film Review: The comedy theme of men posing as women and women posing as men has gotten so old that any variation that can be found, Hollywood has tried to explore. As if last month's women posing as drag queens comedy "Connie & Carla" weren't stupid enough, "White Chicks" sees the Wayan brothers in full makeup and body suits pretending to be white girls. Original? Not really. Years ago black British comic Lenny Henry posed as a white guy for a movie, hell around the same time came one of the few good Whoopi Goldberg comedy films "The Associate" which had her posing as a white man. Whilst "The Associate" was just a decent comedy, "White Chicks" barely fits that category.

To be fair it isn't as bad as the stupid ads let on. The Wayans throw gag after groan-inducing gag at the screen and surprisingly, although it's all been done before, it does garner a few laughs. It not only steals shamelessly from other movies but plays to all the stereotypes, yet the effort that has gone into it yields a more enjoyable and dare I say slightly smarter movie than the hideous "Scary Movie" franchise.

The early scenes don't show much promise such as the opening store bust where the dialogue seems near unintelligible, but things pick up when the spoiled twins (Maitland Ward and Anne Dudek as the ultimate 'valley girls') arrive and the four rush into a quite funny traffic action sequence. After an ultra quick montage of putting on the bodysuits, much of the rest of the film becomes a series of running gags involving the two taking on society rivals and doing 'girly things' like trying on new clothes to trying to fend off the admirations of a horny athelete determined to get it on with one of them.

The laughs are all small, none of the humour stands out as memorable or causes much more than a chuckle but it's all passable. The makeup on the one hand is excellent and turns the guys into belivable busty white chicks, although the facial touches can't hide the very unusual contact lensed eyes which seem almost alien. It runs a little long and like all the Wayans films could've used a more careful script revision, but if you like cheap entertainment that'll make you smile - it works better than it should. - Garth Franklin