As often happens when screenwriters try to stretch an amusing idea to the length of a feature film, the personality's considerable comic impact is diluted by attempts to pad out his story with silly things like plot. Kennedy, who shares screenwriting credit with Adam Small and Fax Bahr (veterans of "Jury Duty" and "In the Army Now," similar fish-out-of-water vehicles for the mercifully vanished Pauly Shore), tries a bit too hard to get us to like the dimwit B-Rad. Despite the inevitable comparisons, B-Rad isn't an Eminem-type thug or even a conscious poser; he's presented to us simply as a goofy kid with a few wires crossed in his head-"the most advanced case of 'Gangstaphrenia,'" as his parents' shrink calls it, "that I've ever seen." The film's need for us to sympathize with B-Rad takes the edge off what could otherwise have been an acerbically witty send-up of a wealthy wannabe. It would have been funnier if it had been less earnest and more relentless. But oh, well ... it's still pretty fucking hilarious.
Like any sketch worth its salt, "Malibu" is at its best when it follows its premise to its most absurd extremes. This is especially true at the beginning, where it has great fun skewering the ridiculous hybrid that emerges from the blend of B-Rad's fixation and the preppiedom of his "native" culture. (I have quite possibly been waiting all my life to see an SUV like B-Rad's ride, jacked up on hydraulics and blasting rap music out the windows -not that living in California hasn't brought me close.) His gang kills time at a Starbucks-type coffee chain; his "crib" is a gorgeous oceanfront mansion where his father, the ever apoplectic-looking Ryan O'Neal, prepares a run for governor. But B-Rad's heartfelt efforts to help his father threaten to ruin his public image, so his soulless campaign manager (Blair Underwood) convinces the reluctant elder Gluckman to let him arrange a "kidnapping" in which B-Rad will get to see the ghetto firsthand.
Smooth and impeccably dressed, the campaign manager is, of course, as "white" as an African-American character can get without actually changing color, and the same is true of the duo he contracts to "scare the black" out of B-Rad. The usually impassive Taye Diggs turns in a very funny over-the-top performance here as a graduate of Juilliard hired with a fellow actor (Anthony Anderson) to impersonate thugs and spirit B-Rad into Compton. Watching these narcissistic sheep in wolves' clothing compare performance notes and bicker in private like the queens they are is a treat. Not only is their own act the negative complement to Kennedy's jive-talking white boy, its entertainment value sometimes surpasses B-Rad's, since the pseudo-bad guys are aware of their pretense in a way B-Rad is not. Kennedy-looking more like an albino Arab in a head nylon and baggy sweatpants, and having gotten decidedly chubbier since his "Scream" days-neatly sidesteps the whole issue of "posing" by making it clear that the bar-mitzvah'd B-Rad all but believes he's black.
A rap fanatic since his toddler years, B-Rad is like a young animal who's gotten his scents mixed up and thinks the wrong creature is his mother. He's not the real thing, but he's not a fake, either; in fact, when he snaps briefly into honky mode, it turns out to be a frightened impersonation aimed at convincing his captors to let him go. Unfortunately, this is the only sign of intelligence shown by B-Rad, who otherwise functions at the same mental level as the main character of Adam Sandler's "Waterboy"-that of a sweet but slightly retarded 8-year-old. The constant, bouncy rhythm of his speech patterns contributes to the impression of childishness, and reminds one of the Cat in the Hat. All in all, B-Rad is a little too dopey and ingenuous to be wholly likeable, and we're left wondering what on earth the Girl (Regina Hall, playing an accomplice to the "kidnapping," who soon finds herself protecting B-Rad) could possibly see in him, other than the fact that the script requires them to end up together. The ostensible reason is the same one given in "Forrest Gump" for Jenny's eventual attraction to her simple-minded neighbor-that her idiot beau, unlike other men, treats her respectfully and is obviously incapable of slapping her around. But the majority of nice men are not stupid; and, let's face it, only in the movies do absolute morons finish first. I would have enjoyed B-Rad far more had his IQ been ratcheted up a few notches, not necessarily to full maturity, but if he had been on a par with, say, a gleeful 12-year-old, like the protagonist of "Wayne's World." Mike Myers managed to make his Wayne, music obsessived fanatic, both simple and sly. He was goofy, but knowing, which was why it was okay for him to wind up with the ultra-hot Cassandra at the end. By contrast, Kennedy's B-Rad is so practically prepubescent that the idea of him having a girlfriend seems vaguely weird.
Mercifully, Kennedy does not ask us to believe this guy can also win the hearts of the 'hood, where his welcome is overwhelmingly negative, and from whence he makes his way home seemingly as addicted to hip-hop culture as ever. The last third of the movie is undercut by an injection of saccharine moralizing, not overwrought enough to be ironic and yet something I hesitate to label as sincere, to the tired old tune of "Just be yourself." Given "Malibu's" subject matter, it's a curious credo: being yourself is all well and good, of course, but if doing so makes other people want to crack you over the head with a baseball bat, some caution might be in order. But oh, well: like I said, "Malibu's Most Wanted" is a mixed bag. And in the end the film redeems its stupidity in the same way its main character does: by making you laugh a lot.