‘Undercover Brother’ skewers racial stereotypes

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In theaters

UNDERCOVER BROTHER, directed by Malcolm D. Lee, written by John Ridley and Michael McCullers, 89 minutes, rated PG-13.

When it comes to beating The Man at his own game, Malcolm D. Lee’s “Undercover Brother” packs a righteous punch. Universal released the film four weeks before “Austin Powers in Goldmember,” which is no accident but a direct attempt to goose a box-office conspiracy.

The film, from a screenplay John Ridley and Michael McCullers adapted from Ridley’s popular Internet cartoon series (www.UrbanEntertainment.com), is a parody of the blaxploitation films of the 1970s.

For anyone who has seen “Blacula,” “Watermelon Man” and especially “Cleopatra Jones,” which features Tamara Dobson as a towering “connoisseur of freedom who handles a car like a gun, a gun like a man, and men like Cleopatra – Cleopatra Jones, that is,” that might sound redundant considering the blaxploitation movement ultimately came to spoof itself.

But mirroring Keenan Ivory Wayans’ 1988 film “I’m Gonna Git You Sucka,” Lee remains true to the core of what the movement was all about: a black hero glamorously fighting crime to the funkadelic sounds of a terrific soundtrack.

The crime “Brother” explores is one committed against black culture – which, according to an underground agency called the B.R.O.T.H.E.R.H.O.O.D., has eroded over the years thanks to such pop-culture nuisances as Urkel, Mr. T and the sight of Dennis Rodman in a wedding dress.

Further troubling the B.R.O.T.H.E.R.H.O.O.D.’s colorful team of crime fighters – Smart Brother (Gary Anthony), Conspiracy Brother (David Chappelle), the Chief (Chi McBride), and Sistah Girl (Aunjanue Ellis) among them – is that a black presidential candidate (Billy Dee Williams) has mysteriously decided to stop running for office and open a chain of fried chicken restaurants that serves, among other things, Nappy Meals.

Who’s behind it all? Naturally, The Man, an unseen white guy with an evil henchman in Mr. Feather (Chris Kattan) and a potent vixen in the impossibly curvaceous sexpot, White She Devil (Denise Richards).

As convoluted as the plot sounds, Lee breezes through much of it with an excellent cast and the glue of Eddie Griffin’s performance as Undercover Brother, an ultrasmooth, retro-’70s “Robin Hood from the ‘hood” who drives a gold Cadillac convertible, sports an enormous Afro and wears platform shoes that truly live up to their name.

Hired by the B.R.O.T.H.E.R.H.O.O.D. to help put a stop to The Man’s plan, “Operation Whitewash,” Undercover Brother unleashes his kung-fu moves and deadly Afro picks in a film that’s impossible not to like even when some of its jokes – which shrewdly skewer both black and white stereotypes – fall flat.

Grade: B

On video and DVD

THE MOTHMAN PROPHECIES, directed by Mark Pellington, written by Richard Hatem, 119 minutes, rated PG-13.

After the success of “Spider-Man,” one can’t help hoping that Mark Pellington’s “The Mothman Prophecies” will feature a winged superhero zipping about the world in a colorful lycra Mothman suit – one that is, naturally, riddled with holes.

But that isn’t the case. Instead, the film is a supernatural drama “based on true events,” which in this case means that the truth – or what is allegedly the truth – has been stretched to create two hours of occasionally compelling fiction.

But don’t expect a satisfying outcome.

Loosely based on John Keel’s book, “The Mothman Prophecies” stars Richard Gere as John Klein, a Washington Post reporter whose life turns into an episode of “The X-Files” when his wife, Mary (Debra Messing), crashes their car after seeing something strange hovering in the middle of the road.

Each survives the accident, but poor Mary isn’t the same. Diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor shaped like a moth, she becomes hallucinatory and paranoid – and is eventually drawn to a bright light of her own.

Two years later, John, still mourning Mary’s death, is driving to Richmond, Va., when he’s mysteriously transported to Point Pleasant, W.Va., a small town whose weird sightings are documented by the local cop (Laura Linney), but which nobody wants to talk about without raising a shotgun first.

What follows is a movie that has its suspenseful moments and a technically well-conceived final blowout atop a shaky suspension bridge, but audiences might be hard pressed to make sense of what they’ve just seen by the time the film reaches its dramatic conclusion.

Indeed, by not revealing what or who the Mothman is (we barely see the creature), “The Mothman Prophecies” keeps an unsatisfying distance. In the end, it’s not elusive for the sake of creating a mystery, but because it seems that Pellington and Hatem ultimately had no answers of their own.

Grade: C

Christopher Smith’s reviews appear Mondays and Fridays in Style, occasionally on E! Entertainment’s “E! News Weekend,” Tuesdays on “NEWS CENTER at 5” and Thursdays on “NEWS CENTER at 5:30” on WLBZ-2 and WCSH-6. He can be reached at BDNFilm1@aol.com.

The Video-DVD Corner

Renting a video or a DVD? NEWS film critic Christopher Smith can help. Below are his grades of recent releases in video stores.

The Mothman Prophecies ? C

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone ? B 3/4

Sidewalks of New York ? B-

Lantana ? A

Vanilla Sky ? B+

Corky Romano ? D-

From Hell ? C

The Others ? B+

Snow Dogs ? B-

Ocean’s Eleven ? B

Waking Life ? A

Ali ? B+

Not Another Teen Movie ? C-

Behind Enemy Lines ? C-

No Man’s Land ? A

Black Knight ? F

The Deep End ? A

Domestic Disturbance ? C

The Man Who Wasn’t There ?

B+

Mulholland Drive ? A

Spy Game ? C+

Bandits ? D

13 Ghosts ? F

Donnie Darko ? B

K-Pax ? B-

Life as a House ? C

Original Sin ? F

Our Lady of the Assassins ? B+

Riding in Cars with Boys ? B-

Training Day ? B-

Heist ? B+

Joy Ride ? B+

Zoolander ? C-