White Chicks
Film Reviewed by Kam Williams

White Chicks (PG-13)

Starring: Shawn Wayans, Marlon Wayans
Directed by: Keenen Ivory Wayans
Release Date: 06/23/2004
Run time: 105 min.
Genre: Comedy, New Release
Synopsis: Two black FBI agents, desperate to get back in the bureau’s good graces after a disastrous drug sting, agree to protect the Wilson sisters, a pair of hotel heiresses and socialites, from a kidnapping plot. In their zeal to protect the girls (and give the audience plenty of laughs), the agents actually become decoys, disguising themselves as the sisters.
 

Reviewed by Michael Dequina   (out of a possible )

I try not to judge a film before seeing it, but the poster tagline "Shawn Wayans and Marlon Wayans are White Chicks" cannot help but instill a certain feeling’namely, that of dread. Alas, there’s nothing in the actual film to sway such an opinion any degree in the opposite direction.

From frame one, the screen is populated with broad, unfunny caricatures and no one resembling an actual person’which is then taken to the nth degree when, after many painful contrivances, a pair of inept brother FBI agents (the Wayans duo, who share writing credit with older bro/director Keenen Ivory Wayans and no less than *three* additional credited scribes) decide to go deep undercover as the two spoiled "white chicks" of the title.

Never mind that none of the jokes (mostly of the obvious culture/gender clash ilk) elicit more than a faint giggle, nor that Shawn Wayans continues to prove to be the family genetic aberration in that he shows no affinity for comedy whatsoever. The movie hits the point of no return with the creepily inhuman sight of brothers’ caucasian female drag; to call their makeup on the level of grocery store Halloween costume masks is to be overly charitable—a shame, since it does a disservice to the one effective piece of work in the film: the hilarious performance of Terry Crews as the slick pro athlete hopelessly smitten with white chick Marlon. To be both funny and convincing in such an impossible role? That is *acting*.