"Malibu's Most Wanted" doesn't really deserve an entire review devoted to it, so if you want the short version of this article, read the next sentence and skip the rest: The movie is okay for what it's supposed to be.
Isn't that the ultimate cinematic sin, though? Good or bad, a movie should provoke some kind of a reaction or it really doesn't serve any purpose. I'd rather be outrageously offended and put off than just leave feeling indifferent. Who wants to be neutral!?
The film has all kinds of potential for hilarity, but it blows several close-to-funny sight gags. There is no sense of pacing or direction.Not to say it doesn't have its moments. Several scenes had me laughing out loud, but it dragged from beginning to end.
Brad (Jamie Kennedy), whose rapper name is "B-Rad," is kicking it hardcore on the sissy streets of Malibu, strutting through the mall with his posse and checking folks who accidentally sell him the wrong scent of aromatherapy candles. His dad is running for Senate and Brad's outlandish behavior makes a mess out of the media campaign.
So his dad's campaign advisors cook up a scheme to get two black actors to pose as carjackers, kidnap him and take him to the hood to "scare the black out of him."
Does it work? Well, you'll just have to catch it in the video store bargain bin to find out.
There's really not much substance in "Malibu" to be analyzed. An interesting aspect of the film is that Brad actually is what he pretends to be. A commonly held perception is that white people who exhibit behavior stereotypically attributed to African Americans (such as listening to rap, wearing stylish clothes, or being cool) are automatically posing.
A flashback in the film takes us back to Brad at age three, where he's kicking it to some old school rap. This tells us that he was always down and that his rap-centered personality evolved over the course of his entire life. He's no insta-gangsta who decided to start "acting black" to achieve some sense of identity when adolescence struck. He really is what he pretends to be, and that's a nice surprise.
The character is endearing, too. While not always funny or on-target, Kennedy's performance is fairly likeable and he delivers a few zinger lines.
As his dad, Ryan O'Neal gives a likewise likeable performance. He's a warm, caring father who really wants the best for his son even when he doesn't know how to provide it. He's fallen pretty far from his glory days in Kubrick's "Barry Lyndon," 30 or so years ago, but he appears to be recovering quite well from leukemia, so I'll cut him some slack.
An item worth noting is the outtakes at the end of the film. Outtakes can sometimes be a very nice dessert after a filling cinematic meal, such as a Jackie Chan action extravaganza.
But "Malibu's Most Wanted" single-handedly sets the art of outtakes back several years. Especially with the advent of DVD, people should be able to do them right by now.
But about half the outtakes at the end of this film are pointless, go nowhere, or simply consist of the actors starting to laugh in the middle of a line. Since DVDs make it easy as pie to include a blooper reel as an extra feature, the MPAA should pass legislation against frivolous outtake loops at the end of films. I feel like staying for this extra bit of film wasted three minutes of my life. A film should have enough humor on its own without resorting to pointless bloopers at the end.
"Malibu" coulda been a true gangsta, but it's ultimately a cinematic poser without enough laughs to justify the ticket price.
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