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Little Man
2006 - PG-13 - 90 Mins.
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| Director: Keenen Ivory Wayans | | Producer: Rick Alvarez, Lee R. Mayes, Keenen Ivory Wayans, Marlon Wayans and Shawn Wayans | | Written By: Keenen Ivory Wayans, Shawn Wayans and Marlon Wayans | | Starring: Marlon Wayans, Shawn Wayans, Tracy Morgan, Kerry Washington and John Witherspoon |
| Review by: Bill King |
| Official Site: www.littleman-movie.com/ |
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You must work out
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Before settling down to write 'Little Man,' Keenen Ivory Wayans and his writers must have made the decision to make the characters as stupid as possible. There is no other way for this script to work, because it is so preposterous that it borders on insanity. Like Wayans' previous masterpiece 'White Chicks,' 'Little Man' features on an unlikely scenario with boneheaded people being duped by obvious fakers. I noticed that Wayans' next film is a feature-length adaptation of the "In Living Color" sketch "Homey the Clown." Before doing that, maybe Wayans should consider what the "Men on Film" guys would say about it. "Hated it and two snaps down!"
Calvin (Marlon Wayans) is a jewel thief who stashes his diamond in a woman's purse to hide it from the cops. When in the clear, Calvin and his partner Percy (Tracy Morgan) follow the woman and her husband home in order to reclaim it. They come up with a plan for Calvin to disguise himself as a baby, leave him on the doorstep and hope that the happy couple will bring him inside the home. Once there, Calvin will find the diamond and get out as quickly as possible. So far so good, at least until a number of distractions pop up to get in Calvin's way.
The new mom and dad, Vanessa (Kerry Washington) and Darryl (Shawn Wayans), barely realize that this baby looks surprisingly mature for his age. They accept him into their home and offer all the love they can, all the while brushing off his tattoo, muscles, teeth, strength, agility and large penis as anomalies. Darryl and Vanessa notice while changing Calvin's diaper that he's well-endowed, but there's no mention of whether he shaved his balls to make himself convincing. Not that I care, but when a movie is going to employ this kind of storyline, all avenues should be covered.
While Percy is trying to buy more time from the mob to reclaim the diamond, Calvin finds himself in more ridiculous situations in which the adults don't catch on to this act. Throughout the course of the film, Calvin will demand to be breast fed, French kiss a woman, pick up heavy objects, attempt to evade a rectal thermometer, and play tackle football, which right there is a pretty amazing feat for an infant. All of these actions are in plain view of Darryl and Vanessa, who don't even begin to suspect anything out of the ordinary.
This is a particularly difficult film to enjoy, because everyone is written in such a way as to be oblivious to what is essentially a dwarf in disguise. The script demands that the audience throw out anything resembling common sense or intelligence. At one time, Keenen Ivory Wayans delivered smarter entertainment. His previous works ("In Living Color", 'Scary Movie') were funny without resorting to such extreme human stupidity. For all of 'Scary Movie''s raunchiness, it is still a far superior film because it had the benefit of being satire. 'Little Man' is not satire. More to the point, it's not a good comedy, but a terrible one.
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