Brad 'B-Rad' Gluckman (Jamie Kennedy) and his crew are gangster wannabes from the hood of Malibu, California. His father Bill (Ryan O'Neal) is running for governor. Bess (Bo Derek) is his mother. He wants to join the political campaign but the political team hates the idea and he keeps screwing up. Tom Gibbsons (Blair Underwood) and his team come up with an idea to scare Brad straight by having amateur actors Sean James (Taye Diggs) and PJ (Anthony Anderson) kidnap him. The two white-bread actors recruit PJ's cousin Shondra (Regina Hall).This is a perfectly fine idea for spoof. I really like Anthony Anderson and Taye Diggs isn't that bad. They're almost funny trying to act black. The drawback is Jamie Kennedy. He's trying too hard to spoof the idea. It would work better if he committed to be serious. He seems to be doing it with a wink and a smile. It actually takes away from the comedic potential. He should be clueless, not act clueless.

This movie does a good job of developing character types and playing them off against each other.First, there is the ironic humor implicit in a white boy thinking that his rich white beach town is "the hood" and that he is one of the "oppressed people." At one point, he asks his black governess if she thinks that "our people" will ever be treated right. Eventually we find out that this white boy was literally raised by his black governess because his parents -- who are important and busy people -- were never around.He listened to and loved her music, got her perspective on life, picked up her accent, etc. He fell in love with rap music as a little kid, and his goal in life is to be a big-time rapper.So the notion of a white boy acting black is not as preposterous as it seems.One aspect of this movie that I found brilliant was the way the writers also incorporated the opposite situation of blacks "acting white." Specifically, two black character actors -- one who attended Juilliard, the other who launched his career at the Pasadena Playhouse, are hired by the boy's father to "scare the boy white." At first, we see these actors in an ad for the father's gubernatorial campaign arguing and pushing each other on a basketball court, and they do seem very tough.But when we meet them in person, they don't really have a clue about the ghetto or how to act like gangsters.When they stage a kidnapping of the white boy and take him to the house of one of their girlfriends who lives in the ghetto, they quickly realize that they are in over their heads.Then some real gang bangers come along and (in another ironic juxtaposition) the hardest core gangster in a guns-blazing showdown turns out to be the poser white boy, whose shooting escapade (no one is killed or injured) is captured on video by reporters and televised on the evening news.Naturally, the boy's father sees this and is mortified -- what will become of his run for the governorship now? Anyway, congratulations to the writers of this movie for a job well done.And congratulations to Jamie Kennedy for his excellent acting and comedic skills.

... Yeah! But this one's a sure success! Treating a subject like this ain't no easy feat IMHO.A little bit of mistake and the whole thing could be turned into one of those spoiled movies that don't even sound funny.Good one here indeed hence the 10 stars I'd give it even though it ain't win no Oscars or nothing of 'em nice awards.(Hey, I sure am sounding a l'le ethnic in here ain't I?) :)This movie is a fine example of those getting into a 'mixed up' society. A place where people of various ethnicities and racial or social groups do live together and mingle too but they never add up or properly get together. Mixed identities, alienated souls, badly mistaken (if not dirty) politics, and so forth ...

I just can't begin to describe how horribly offensive this movie was. A could count on a hand missing 2 fingers the things that were funny in this movie. The part where "B-rad" was in the shrinks office and he said "I told you, thats my slave name." I always found mocking black nationalism to be funny (Nat X on Saturday Night Live was great). When the rabbi asks Brad what the theme of his bar mitzvah is going to be and Brad says "its O.P.P. bitch!" And finally, the part were the ganstas that "kidnapped" Brad said when Brad asked if they wanted some pringles, the gansta says, "this ain't no picnic bitch." Other than those few things the movie was rather stale. It could have been better with some better actors though.