The Home of Steven Barnes
Author, Teacher, Screenwriter


Friday, July 14, 2006

Little Man (2006)

Staggeringly bad taste.  This clumsy Wayans Brothers comedy about a diminutive thief masquerading as a baby is one of the most honestly advertised films I’ve seen in a long time.  If you are amused by the sight of a little black baby with a grotesque adult head punching people in the groin and French-kissing blondes, you’re going to howl.  I did.  It’s hysterically uneven, a live-action cartoon that breaks more social taboos than I can count.  I KNEW that critics were going to tear this one apart, before I ever knew what it’s values and problems actually were.  The Wayans’ understand the underbelly of certain aspects of American culture with laser precision, and go straight for the jugular.

I suspect this movie is going to make a ton of money, that they may have found the right way to package a lot of actually interesting and intelligent observation—in the form of a tasteless, calculatedly artless fart-joke fest. I can’t exactly recommend it, but it really gets the job done.  Hell, I haven’t laughed that hard in a very long time.  I’m going to give it a politically-incorrect “B+”

No comments: