Movie Review

Who's Your Caddy? (PG-13)

Brian Marder

Movie Info

Hollywood.com Says
If the title’s genius play on words makes you chuckle, quit while you’re ahead and skip this movie. Of course, do skip Who's Your Caddy? just the same if the title does nothing for you.

Story
Sure, we’ve seen underdog-themed sports comedies ad nauseam. But when was the last time you saw it with mix-ins of toilet and marijuana humor? Aha! Touché, Who's Your Caddy?, touché. Our token, er, tokin’ underdog here is C-Note (Antwan Patton, aka Big Boi from Outkast), a multi-platinum Atlanta-based rapper who just wants to get his golf on. But here’s the catch: He wants to do so at an ultra-exclusive, ultra-conservative, seemingly all-white country club, and the club’s president, Cummings (Jeffrey Jones), isn’t having any of it. So what’s a golf-lorn hip-hopper to do? Why, plunk down millions on the course’s chicest estate and invite his posse (Faizon Love, Finesse Mitchell and others) to move in and hassle the prez to grant C-Note club membership. So begins the cat-and-mouse hijinks between C-Note and Cummings, each of whom hopes force the other’s hand. And it only ends when—surprise, surprise—a do-or-die golf match is agreed upon to settle the score.

Acting
All of the cast members fit the bill for such crassness—except for, oddly enough, Patton (Boi?). And when a rapper-turned-actor is too good for a role, it’s a solid indication of just how low the bar is. Producers aren’t exactly banging down Patton’s door with Oscar-worthy scripts, but his offers must be better than Caddy, which he probably viewed as a good first foray into the lucrative family-comedy genre. Oops. Patton is charismatic, charming, funny in spots—despite appearing to break character once or twice—and, as seen in Idlewild and heard in his music, highly talented. But Caddy is a misstep in an otherwise promising movie career. Luckily, not too many people will venture to theaters to witness the degree to which it is. The brunt of the minimal comedy comes from Notorious B.I.G. doppelganger Love and former SNL-er Mitchell. The few funny scenes with the two, in which Love injects his standup humor and Mitchell, his stoner aloofness, are scenes of (likely improvised) non-sequiturs. Ferris Bueller's Day Off villain Jones is as hateful and hateable as ever, only to be topped by MTV star Andy Milonakis, who plays Jones’ onscreen son. Milonakis initially plays it so straight that even his fans will squirm in embarrassment; it only gets worse when he rebels against his father and changes teams.

Direction
Who's Your Caddy? writer-director Don Michael Paul’s only other movie you may have heard of (2002’s Half Past Dead) was a Steven Seagal movie—and his latest pales in comparison. Paul’s interests clearly lie in the lowest of lowbrow, but whereas the Scary/Date/Epic Movie clan, for example, manages a few laughs—and millions of dollars—out of their comedies, he can’t ever get Caddy going in any positive direction. At times, in fact, the movie borders on blatant racism as he tries to exploit black stereotypes and white stereotypes for cheap laughs. When that’s not the case, the movie merely rips off bits of countless other, better movies—despite the “originality” of fart and weed jokes being in a sports movie. Look closely, if you dare, and you may detect theft from Happy Gilmore, Caddyshack, How High, Friday or maybe even Malibu's Most Wanted. Worse still than his plot devices is Paul’s implementation of directorial devices, such as ever-changing cinematography depending upon the degree of giddiness he’s trying to attain or freeze-frame shots to introduce certain characters.

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