Malibu's Most Wanted | AccessAtlanta

Malibu's Most Wanted

Teenagers indulging in personal style.

FILM FACTS

Starring: Jamie Kennedy, Anthony Anderson, Taye Diggs, Regina Hall and Blair Underwood
Director: John Whitesell
Rating: PG-13, but many parents will think its language, partial nudity, drug references and violence should have earned it an R
Genre: Comedy

Discuss this film | Official movie site

On DVD September 9 (PG-13) 85 minutes

Grade: B-

Verdict: Somewhat fresh, somewhat formulaic, spoof of white-boy rappers.

By CHRIS HEWITT
Knight Ridder Newspapers

What do you do when you have a great idea for a 30-minute movie? Pad it with 55 minutes of filler and hope no one notices.

"Malibu's Most Wanted," a spoof of Eminem and other white-boy rappers, has about 30 minutes of good material and some filler that's not bad. What gives the movie legs (or, as its Snoop Dogg slang-stealing hero would say, "What gives it lizzeggs") is that the lead character is well-meaning and surprisingly endearing.

As played by Jamie Kennedy, Brad Gluckman -- who prefers to be called B. Rad, despite the fact that he's all salt and no pepa -- is a privileged Malibu kid who wishes he'd grown up in South Central Los Angeles. The conceit of the movie is that his dad hires some suburban African-American actors (Taye Diggs, Anthony Anderson) to show B. Rad what it's really like on the streets, and, in the process, the gangsta wannabe, the suburbanites and some real-life gangsters learn they have more in common than they think.

The comedy in "Malibu's Most Wanted" is as broad as LL Cool J's shoulders, although not nearly as impressive. The script gets off a few inspired riffs on its class-struggle theme, but the concept is thin and you can feel the movie's language straining to stay within the limits of a PG-13 rating.

"Malibu" is at its most inspired when it makes fun of Eminem. "8 Mile," with its ultra-traditional storyline, is an eminently spoofable film, and "Malibu" might have been more consistent if it had waited a few months, giving itself enough time to take some sharper jabs at Eminem.

Instead, Mr. Mathers emerges unscathed, and the movie gets by, just barely, on its own good nature.