The tagline for "Underclassman," the latest in a slew of Miramax flops, reads, "Get Ready to Be Schooled." It should really warn viewers to "Get ready to be bombarded by every possible movie cliché." From the opening credits, the film appears to be nothing more than a "Beverly Hills Cop" rip-off with some of Nick Cannon's offbeat hijinx added to spice it up. And boy, is Nick Cannon hilarious.
In this sub-par version of "Beverly Hills Cop," Nick Cannon stands in for Eddie Murphy as bike cop Tracy "Tre" Stokes, a hot-headed 23-year-old who can't seem to do anything right. After flubbing a high-speed delivery truck vs. Huffy bicycle pursuit and destroying half of the California coastline, Officer Stokes comes under the scrutiny of his commanding officer, Chief Delgado, otherwise known as Cheech Marin. Yes, Cheech plays a man of the law.
Instead of kicking Stokes off the force, Chief Delgado allows him go undercover at the prestigious Westbury prep school to aid the investigation of a mysterious homicide. After all, Stokes' father was a respected member of the force prior to his death. And who is the chief to stand in the way of young Tre's attempts to live up to his father's legacy? It's all very touching, really.
At that point, the movie takes on a "Never Been Kissed" feeling. As part of the investigation, Tre must befriend the popular kids, who are suspects in the murder. The formula is quite simple: he parks in one of their "reserved" stalls, tells them to "take it up with the new black guy," plays a little basketball and finally knocks out a gangster in a beach brawl in order to gain acceptance from the social elite.
From then on, Tre is kept busy racing jet skis and tooling around in luxury vehicles. Between all of his extracurricular activities, Tre finds a spare 15 minutes to do some actual investigating and soon discovers murder is not the only problem at Westbury, (gasp!), there is also a drug-trafficking and car-theft ring!
To add yet another element to the already ridiculous plotline full of contrived twists and turns, Tre manages to take some time to strike up a flirtatious relationship with his Spanish teacher, a woman who shamelessly flaunts her cleavage and offers Tre private tutoring.
Nick Cannon should not be limiting himself to playing roles like this. He is a talented entertainer with great comedic timing, but shouldn't have to spout a dialogue comprised of racially-loaded one-liners to get laughs. His character makes quips like "Can't a brother get a brown egg?" and "You know, chocolate has more flava" at least once every five minutes. His remaining dialogue consists of fat jokes involving the doughnut consumption of one of his fellow officers. The jokes are mildly comical at first, but quickly become painful. The bulk of dialogue in this film seems to be comeback after comeback, lacking any sort of substance. Imagine this exchange, for example:
"You know what, you're pretty fat!"
"Oh yeah? Well at least I'm not a pretty-boy!"
"Yeah, but you sure are fat! You're so fat you eat a lot of food!"
Now repeat that exchange 30 times and see if it's still funny. Probably not. The worst part is Cannon assisted in the creation of the dialogue. In addition to playing the leading man, he earned credits as a co-writer and executive producer of the film.
Overall, "Underclassman" makes cop movies like "Hollywood Homicide" seem appealing. The film tries too hard to be a comedy-action-romance and fails on all counts. The only justifiable reason to see this movie is to get a chuckle out of seeing Nick Cannon with a creepy mustache.
Grade: D
