BY LARRY CARROLL | The "Blaxploitation" films of the seventies were given the name because white studio executives greenlit their production having realized, for the first time, that money could be made selling films targeted at black audiences. When the films began being cranked out like sausage, what started out as a segment of society trying to find a podium on which to address the problems it faced everyday (Sweet Sweetback's Baad Asssss Song, Superfly) soon devolved into a farcical contest to see who could be the most outrageous (The Avenging Disco Godfather, The Six Thousand Dollar Nigger). Eventually the genre played itself out thanks to bad scripts, low budgets and a saturated marketplace. When the smoke cleared, however, it wasn't the blacks that had been exploited - African American actors, directors and production crews had become firmly entrenched in Hollywood. This would soon yield such groundbreaking films as Do the Right Thing and Boyz N the Hood, and lead to a more enlightened film environment that most recently manifested itself in the Academy Award triumphs of Halle Berry and Denzel Washington.

Now, some thirty years later, the genre has been revived thanks to the efforts of people like Quentin Tarantino, Larry Cohen and John Singleton. Watching movies like the Shaft remake pull in the big bucks, it would be nice to think that audiences are embracing the second coming of Blaxploitation to pay tribute to those who helped break down the color barriers which had previously kept virtually every black on screen in the subservient roles of butler, prostitute or slave. It would be nice if the revival meant that people had begun to realize the historical significance of the movement. It would be nice if all this was resulting in long-overdue accolades for pioneers like Fred Williamson, Pam Grier and Melvin Van Peebles. But the truth is, the real driving force behind the latest part of the revival may just be a white guy with bad teeth.

At least, that appears to be the case in the latest Blaxploitation revival picture, entitled Undercover Brother. Just like Austin Powers, the Brother is an oversexed, action minded catch-phrase machine, transported to modern times but still sporting the same bellbottoms and bad haircut. Although the film is based on a series of Internet shorts, and the fish-out-of-water comedy is hardly a new thing, Mike Myers' shagadelic spy does pre-date Undercover Brother's debut. One might say that blaxploitation has gone from "rated X by an all-white jury" to "labeled derivative of an all-white movie."

A voice-over sequence begins the film by telling us that the Seventies marked the high point of black culture and pride, a period of creativity that was crushed thanks to the efforts of "The Man", a faceless, evil white guy smoking a big cigar. The Man has been able to destroy virtually all the good things that came out of that decade in the years since by creating disparaging black icons such as Steve Urkel, and now African-American pride is at an all-time low.

United against The Man and his minions, we learn, is an organization called The B.R.O.T.H.E.R.H.O.O.D., led by a permanently incensed guy named The Chief (Chi McBride from television's Boston Public). Using operatives with code names like Smart Brother (Gary Anthony Williams, End of Days), Conspiracy Brother (Dave Chappelle, Half Baked) and Sistah Girl (Aunjanue Ellis, Men of Honor), they have managed to infiltrate the The Man's ranks. But, when it becomes clear that they're going to need help for a job this big, The Chief calls on a Jim Kelly wannabe with an 8-track player in his car.

Undercover Brother (Eddie Griffin, Double Take) may not have been frozen during the Seventies, but like Tom Petty, every change in cultural fashion since then seems to have passed him over without making a dent. UB loves to cruise around town in his 375 horsepower 1972 Cadillac, wearing nothing whose origins aren't related to polyester or leather, listening to PFunk and giving people handshakes that last five minutes long. Picking his afro and smiling at the ladies, he is still the epitome of cool in his own oblivious way. And now the world needs his help.

The movie comes sprinting out of the gate, hilariously recounting the conspiracy, showing us a B.R.O.T.H.E.R.H.O.O.D. sting operation as it falls apart, and then a hilarious sequence in which UB spins out in his Caddy but still manages not to spill a single drop of his beloved orange soda. Showing off a smile exceeded in size only by his hair, he exclaims, "It ain't no thang". Unfortunately, we soon learn that he could very well be referring to the plot of the movie.

Like any one of a number of Saturday Night Live movies, Undercover Brother is fifteen funny minutes of material stretched thin over two hours. Granted, they are fifteen very funny minutes, and you will laugh at them. But there are also enough strained moments of desperation, enough times where they harp on the same running gag or resort to strained improv bits from Griffin or Chris Kattan (playing The Man's right hand, well, man) that the movie makes you reach for your wristwatch as often as your belly.

At its best moments, the movie jabs at the ribs of both black and white people. Most of this humor revolves around the eating habits of the two races; some of these stereotypes we've all heard (fried chicken, collared greens, drinking forties), others we might be unaware of (white people love mayonnaise? black people love hot sauce?), but they are mined for some good, harmless laughs here. Similarly amusing is a sequence culminating in Undercover Brother and the evil White She Devil (Denise Richards) doing a karaoke duet of the gut-wrenching Paul McCartney/Stevie Wonder tune "Ebony and Ivory", or the jokes involving Lance (Neil Patrick Harris), the white intern at The B.R.O.T.H.E.R.H.O.O.D. The black-white jokes are very well done, and will offend everyone equally.

But that damn plot keeps getting in the way. The Achilles' heel of the film is that the screenwriters are perfectly happy to just recycle the most generic elements so they can move on to the next mayonnaise joke. C'mon - an evil guy trying to take over the world? A secret island fortress? A female agent who falls in love with the man she was assigned to kill? Are they even trying? I realize that this movie should be about the comedy first and foremost, but it would be nice if they tried to be a little different when constructing the plot. Or at least, a little different from the Austin Powers films.

Playing the title character, Eddie Griffin finally shows some reason why studios keep giving him work despite taking part in one bad movie (The New Guy) after another (Double Take) after another (The Meteor Man) for almost ten years now. Griffin's best moment until now probably was when he played the hot tub lovin' pimp in Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigalow (another bad movie, but at least he was funny in it). With this performance, Griffin shows that he's at his best when the characters are over-the-top and too outrageous to be taken seriously. When he takes on parts that are closer to real life, when he tries to get the audience to laugh with him rather than at him, that dynamic is lost. Undercover Brother is perfectly tailored for his talents, and is by far the best role of his career.

Most of the other actors do their job, but their successes are mostly due to the fact that they are reciting some funny bits. Denise Richards seems a little confused as to what she's supposed to be doing from one scene to the next, as does Kattan. Also in a daze is Billy Dee Williams (Lando Calrissian in the Star Wars movies), doing his best imitation of Reggie Jackson in The Naked Gun ("I must...kill...the Queen"), but the fun in seeing him on the big screen again outweighs the shortcomings of his performance. The brightest supporting turn is given by Chappelle, who spits out ridiculous conspiracy theories on how everyone from Jesus to Babe Ruth were actually black men.

In an era when most "comedies" that hit movie screens don't have a single laugh in them (remember Slackers? Saving Silverman? Dirty Work?), Undercover Brother ends up looking very good by comparison. Should the dearth of quality in the genre earn this film a stronger recommendation then it deserves? I say no, but if you're desperate for laughs, this isn't a bad place to get your fix.

The blaxploitation movement was not created with the intention of making people laugh. But maybe the fact that we can look back at a time when black anger, white suppression, and ignorant stereotypes were legitimate concerns and find humor in it says something good about how far we've come. Maybe we have made some progress over the last thirty years and maybe some credit should be given to those films. There's no doubt that Undercover Brother was made by a big studio to cash in on the idea of a "black Austin Powers" and once again make some money off urban audiences. But perhaps history is repeating itself. Perhaps it's the studio secretly being exploited so that a message, one of harmony, can be put out to the populace. As Isaac Hayes would say, I can dig it.

GRADE: B-