No.42 : White Chicks (2004)

White Chicks at the IMDb

When you undertake a worthy endeavour like watching 100 ‘W’ movies you have to accept that there will be some clinkers along the way. When the list was compiled ‘White Chicks’ was tarred with the shitty stick, and although it isn’t a classic it still offered more in the way of mirth than ‘Welcome to Mooseport’, for example. My lack of tolerance for the film is all the more shameful when its message is ‘let’s all not prejudge each other’. Well it was that or something about farting; I got a bit confused half way through.

The Wayans brothers play the Copeland brothers a pair of hapless FBI agents. After a bust goes wrong they are on their last warning and readily accept an assignment involves babysitting a pair of spoiled rich white girls, whom intelligence states are about to be kidnap victims. After a minor road accident which sees the girls horribly disfigured, to their minds at least, our men have to form a plan that can save their jobs and the case.

Strangely without any discussion and after only one phone call a team of make up artists rush round and make our two black cops into plausible facsimiles of the white chicks. The rest of the film has virtually no plot and is just a series of set ups that see our heroes in various fish out of water scenarios such as going shopping, a trip to the beach, to a night club and to a fashion show. Towards the very end the cards are laid out and the baddie revealed. Can our men chase him down in high heels and will the various relationships be reconciled in time?

Clearly this is no high art but ‘White Chicks’ is a likable film that doesn’t take itself to seriously. Many of the jokes are of the lowest order and that’s probably what appealed to me, but who can resist prolonged scenes of toilet noise and dinner table farting? The make up was remarkably good and although the cast had to make an effort to pretend the doppelgangers were identical it was a pretty good effort.

The race card wasn’t played too often which again adds to the appeal, and it was good to see rich white folks not portrayed as a bunch of bigots. There was plenty of supporting talent on show and I particularly liked Terry Crews as the randy sports star with the hots for our girls.

On the downside the plot was non existent and many of the conflicts were shoe horned in when a word of explanation would have cleared everything up.

This could have been a film built around a make up effect but some funny scenes and winning characters made it well worth the effort.

Best Bit : The changing room scene with the disbelieving wife on the phone

‘W’ Score 15/23