Review: Malibu’s Most Wanted

Malibu’s Most Wanted is not, I repeat NOT, the single worst film ever committed to celluloid.

Malibu's Most Wanted
Photo: Warner Bros.

Let’s immediately get this out of the way: Malibu’s Most Wanted is not, I repeat NOT, the single worst film ever committed to celluloid. This is an important point to make, since early trailers and television commercials had me expecting this Jamie Kennedy comedy to break new ground in the “so awful it makes you wish for sweet death” category. The truth, however, is that it stinks, but no more so than a handful of other comedies released this year. This inoffensively tedious film fits snugly into the “white people acting like black people” (and vice versa) comedy sub-genre that has dominated the first half of 2003, following in the dubious footsteps of Bringing Down the House and Head of State. Kennedy plays Brad “B-Rad” Gluckman, a kid who talks, walks, and acts like a goofy white version of Snoop Dogg, championing affluent Malibu as his “hood” and releasing a lame CD entitled Mali-booty (he’s the spoiled son of a congressional hopeful played by Ryan O’Neal). To keep this brain-dead kid from messing up Dad’s campaign, a “white” African-American aide to Mr. Gluckman (Blair Underwood) decides to “scare the black out of” B-Rad by hiring two classically-trained “white” African-American actors (Taye Diggs and Anthony Anderson) to impersonate gangsters, kidnap B-Rad, and take him on a tour of the real hood. What this setup provides is nothing more than the opportunity to laugh at idiotic stereotypes, with B-Rad prolifically using hip-hop gibberish—even his Escalade’s license plate reads “D-Shiznit”—in a grating squeaky voice that goes hand-in-hand with his moronically blank expression and ludicrous powder-blue jumpsuit. Kennedy throws joke after joke at the audience with the hope that one or two will hit their mark, and there are a select few—such as the wannabe rapper’s attempt to rhyme “comet” and “vomit” with “planet”—that produce a chuckle despite one’s better judgment. For the most part, however, the film is cast in the SNL film mold—taking an uninspired one-note joke and tirelessly running it into the ground for an hour and a half.

Score: 
 Cast: Jamie Kennedy, Taye Diggs, Anthony Anderson, Blair Underwood, Regina hall, Damien Wayans, Ryan O'Neal, Bo Derek, Snoop Dogg  Director: John Whitesell  Screenwriter: Fax Bahr, Jamie Kennedy, Adam Small, Nick Swardson  Distributor: Warner Bros.  Running Time: 90 min  Rating: PG-13  Year: 2003  Buy: Video, Soundtrack

Nick Schager

Nick Schager is the entertainment critic for The Daily Beast. His work has also appeared in Variety, Esquire, The Village Voice, and other publications.

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