I’m usually a good judge of things. I also know a fair bit about film, and so when I hear about a premise or a cast, usually I can tell if it’s going to be big or mediocre, or in this case, absolutely fucking awful:
I can’t believe they use “FROM THE GUYS WHO BROUGHT YOU WHITE CHICKS” like its something to be fucking proud of. It’s like trying to promote a modern day Youth Camp ran by a German guy with the tagline of “FROM THE GUYS WHO BROUGHT YOU THE HOLOCAUST”.
I don’t know what the fuck the Wayans Brothers are thinking. I also don’t know what the hell the studio that financed this monstrosity is thinking. I was talking about this with a guy at work the other day, and I came to the conclusion that Shawn Wayans just might be the anti-christ.
Don’t get me wrong, Keenan Ivory and Marlon are almost as bad, but I cant speak too pejoratively, since Keenan Ivory is one of the leads of my favourite action film of all time, The Last Boyscout (although saying the movie has anything to do with him is like saying the Jordan era Chicago Bulls had anything to do with Scottie Pippen), and Marlon (by what I can only imagine was a pure freak accident) was in Requiem for a Dream, one of the best films ever made.
THAT SAID.
The premise is this:
“In the hilarious comedy “Little Man,” Shawn Wayans plays a man so anxious to become a father that he mistakes a short-statured, baby-faced thief on the run, played by Marlon Wayans, for an abandoned toddler. He and his wife, played by Kerry Washington, take the “baby” into their home and care for him. The “baby’s” partner-in-crime in a jewelry store heist, played by Tracy Morgan, tries to break him out and recover a stolen diamond.”
I’m gonna be honest, I’ve no doubt I could have eaten a tin of alphabet spaghetti and then shit out a better plot than that.
How they got Kerry Washington in this film is beyond me. Acting in a Jolie/Pitt film and then deciding to do a Wayans brothers movie must be one of the worst decisions in history, right up there with when Tsar Nicholas II said “There’s no problem in Russia, watch me win this war”, or when General Custer said “Well how many Indians can there be?”.
Alarm bells should be ringing in the very first sentence when whichever Horseman of the Apocalypse wrote this synopsis uses the word “hilarious”. You know at this point that the writer is in fact, evil manifest, or one of the Wayans brothers.
A look at the trailer does absolutely nothing to quash your apprehensions.
When you’ve got to the point where you have to steal from previous stories, you’re undoubtedly a hack, but at least you’ve got good direction. Romeo Must Die or that Baz Luhrman mind dump were both mediocre, but they had good source direction. In Little Man, what we have is a story stolen from the Martin Lawrence wonder hit “BLUE STREAK”.
The trailer shows Marlon Wayans run into a grocery store, the cops are coming, so what does he do? Hide it in the store? Put it in a packet of rice and shove it right to the back? Nono, he runs up to someone at the cashier and SHOVES IT IN THEIR BAG. When you have a plot dumber than a Martin Lawrence film that doesnt feature Will Smith then you KNOW you’re in trouble.
Basically, after this Shawn Wayans finds this midget in a baby basket on his doorstep. Now, we can see from the house that he lives in he has some serious de niro, so why he’d chance his seemingly perfect life with a slamming hottie wife on some little shit he found outside his house one afternoon is very questionable. It’s more questionable however what job he has that made him so much money, when he clearly too stupid to determine that this is not a baby, but a midget in baby clothes. Stevie fucking Wonder could tell this was not a baby. Here’s a quick checklist of qualities a baby would not have, should you one day find one on your doorstep and find yourself unaware:
1. He would not have stubble on his face.
2. He would not be able to smack a baseball harder than you.
3. HE WOULD NOT HAVE A FUCKING JAILHOUSE TATTOO ON HIS FOREARM.
If you find yourself able to overlook this subtle transportation into the realm of pure lunacy, then the rest of the trailer revolves around about six different ways to set up Shawn Wayans getting hit in the face with a frying pan or something else hard.
The fact that the Wayans disease are all responsible for this train-wreck is wonderful. It’s written, directed and acted by them, so they have absolutely no one else to blame but god for allowing their continued existence.
**also a note; im not sure what you guys do but I’m currently at university, where I need to maintain my currently sterling grades and am right smack in the middle of my most tumultous coursework deadline period, I’m also simultaneously working in an office from 9-5, 5 days a week so i can go to kl for the summer and visit my girlfriend in a months time, so it would be nice if we didnt have people writing in the comments that our output is not to their fucking standards.