Scene Selection — Geoff Carter: ‘Brother’ not a typical spoof

Friday, Jan. 17, 2003 | 9:20 a.m.

Geoff Carter is a Seattle based free-lance film critic and entertainment writer. Reach him at carter@pre2k.com.

Last summer I went to see "Undercover Brother" -- now available on DVD (Universal DVD, $26.98) -- at the recently opened Neonopolis 14. I went because I wanted to check out the theaters, because I like screenwriter John Ridley's other films ("U-Turn," "Three Kings") and because I felt like a comedy.

And it didn't hurt that it was the only film with a midnight showing. I'd planned to pass on "Undercover Brother" for the same reason, I'd imagine, that a lot of people dismissed it out of hand: The movie's trailer made it look like a "Saturday Night Live" comedy, marginally less funny than rickets.

I was proven wrong with a vengeance. "Undercover Brother" is as funny, smart and cool as the "Austin Powers" franchise thinks it is. I didn't even see the third "Powers" movie, for fear of diminishing my memory of "Brother." Now that "Brother" is available on DVD, I suppose I could see "Austin Powers in Goldmember." Eventually.

In adapting Ridley's animated Internet series of the same name, director Malcolm D. Lee ("The Best Man") has pulled off a stunning double-whammy: "Undercover Brother" parodies dozens of sources, including "Shaft," James Bond and itself, and offends everyone without really offending anyone.

Mel Brooks blazed this path, the Zucker Brothers widened it, and Lee turns it into a superhighway.

Eddie Griffin plays the title character, "the Robin Hood of the 'hood," as close to Ridley's cartoon as reality allows. He wears suits that Bootsy Collins would proudly call his own, has "platform" shoes that are as good as their name and maintains an afro tall enough to endanger low-flying planes.

"UB" is recruited by a top-secret organization, "The B.R.O.T.H.E.R.H.O.O.D." (the acronym is never explained) to fight "The Man" -- who, as it turns out, is really just one evil guy bent on destroying race relations.

It's silly, oh yes. On the DVD's commentary track, Lee says, "If this offends you, good. It should." We see Undercover Brother posing as a tobacco company executive trying to sell "tiny, limp" cigarettes, asking a white executive, "How many black people are gonna want to smoke this?" "Not the one I know," he responds matter-of-factly.

The DVD is loaded with commentary tracks, bloopers and extra scenes, most of which Lee was wise not to include in the film (it's a wise director who knows enough to encourage Chris Kattan to act out, then lop most of his buffoonery from the final cut), but the real gem of the extras is a few episodes of the Internet series, still running on the Urban Entertainment website.

The cartoons aren't as good as the movie, but they do offer a tantalizing peek at what sequels to "Undercover Brother" could offer. "We think he's being held against his will," Undercover Brother is told. "Somebody's got to infiltrate the inner sanctum of the Republican Party and free Alan Keyes!"

If Austin Powers would be so kind as to step aside, this "Brother" is gonna work it out.