White Chicks (2004)
I don’t know which is the most unbelievable aspect of the Wayans boys latest venture into crude humor, White Chicks — that two Black men could be believable as white women or that a script this anemic would take six people to write it. This one’s straight out of the “Let’s take a funny idea for a 5-minute skit and milk it for all it’s worth for 90+ minutes” bag, and in those minutes, it shouldn’t surprise you to know that only five minutes worth of good movie will be had.
Shawn and Marlon Wayans star as Kevin and Marcus Copeland, two brothers who just so happen to be partners working as FBI agents. It seems the harder they try to catch their bad guys, the more in hot water they get, as their ability to put on disguises and go undercover can’t hide the fact that these two are as inept as they come. Their latest assignment is to take the heiress daughters to a fortune, Brittany and Tiffany, to the resort spot of the Hamptons, where they can be monitored closely for an impending kidnapping plot that the Feds believe is about to go down. When an accident leaves the girls’ faces blemished, they refuse to play along, and not wanting to fail yet again; the Copeland brothers decide to do things themselves — disguising themselves as Brittany and Tiffany!
Suspension of disbelief is a given for this comedy to work, as these are two of the ugliest women you might ever have the misfortune of seeing in your lifetime. It’s not just that the Wayans don’t look like women. They don’t look even look human!
This formula is tired. You’ve seen the man posing as a woman angle before, as well as the Black posing as white before. A combination of the two does not an original film make, as the same type of situations from other similar movies emerge, and sadly, outside of some very crude toilet humor, the Wayans have nothing new to add. You’ve got the man who becomes obsessed with one of the women, the jealous wife, the snotty girlfriends, and the hard to wear women’s clothing scenes.
This film is just so shamefully bad, I not only feel guilty for admitting I viewed it, I am more ashamed that I laughed on a couple of occasions. Yes, believe it or not, amid all of the lousy plotting and gross-out shenanigans, a couple of moments of hilarity do emerge. Alas, not nearly enough to overcome the severe flaws inherent in a film this ridiculous.
A horrible plot, overused story elements, and tasteless humor fill up most of the running time, making White Chicks one of the weakest films of 2004. If only the Wayans televisions shows would stop getting canceled, perhaps this could have been done as it should have, as skit comedy, instead of subjecting us to two hours of unappealing dreck.
If you find fart humor endlessly funny, White Chicks was made just for you — quite an appropriate comedic device for a film that stinks this bad.
Qwipster’s rating: D-
MPAA Rated: PG-13 for crude and sexual humor, language and some drug content (I’d rate it R)
Running Time: 96 min.
Cast: Shawn Wayans, Marlon Wayans, Terry Crews, Jaime King, Frankie Faison, Lochlyn Munro, John Heard, Busy Phillips, Brittany Daniel, Eddie Velez, Jessica Cauffiel, Maitland Ward, Anne Dudek, Rochelle Aytes, Jennifer Carpenter, Faune A. Chambers
Director: Keenen Ivory Wayans
Screenplay: Keenen Ivory Wayans, Shawn Wayans, Marlon Wayans, Andy McElfresh, Michael Anthony Snowden, Xavier Cook