Little Man

It's finally happened.  After years of circling around, members of the casts of Saturday Night Live, In Living Color, and Mad TV finally converge in one movie.  And it's not a good thing.  In fact, Little Man is a horrible, horrible movie.  And it's a bit creepy.  Because this is the latest movie from Keenan Ivory Wayans (White Chicks, Scary Movie 2) and his brothers and co-writers Shawn and Marlon Wayans (White Chicks, Scary Movie 2), audiences and fans can expect more of the same outrageous, lowbrow humor with an emphasis on outrageous and lowbrow.  Typically, their films manage to be funny.  In the case of Little Man, they take a joke and beat it to death, then continue to beat until there is nothing left.  Little Man is a one joke film that runs out of material very quickly - a very little man dresses up as a baby to try to steal a diamond.  That's it.

The little man in question is Calvin (Marlon Wayans), who is fresh out of jail.  To achieve the illusion of a miniature protagonist, the Wayans' found nine-year old Linden Porco, who is less than three feet tall.  Porco's body was filmed, then Wayans' face was digitally inserted onto the body.  In essence, Wayans' acting consisted primarily of facial expressions.  The final product looks a bit off-kilter at times, but realistic and profoundly disturbing.  Calvin, who is just out of jail, and his dimwitted partner Percy (Tracy Morgan, The Longest Yard, Are We There Yet?) scheme to steal an enormous diamond.  However, the police begin chasing them, forcing Calvin to drop it into the purse of Vanessa (Kerry Washington, Fantastic Four, Mr. and Mrs. Smith), who is shopping with her husband Darryl (Shawn Wayans). 

In order to get the diamond back, Calvin pretends he is a baby, and works his way into the household of Darryl and Vanessa, who themselves are thinking about having children.  They decide to look after him for the weekend, while Calvin tries to steal the diamond at every opportune moment (there are few).  The continuous slapstick in Little Men is funny only to the easily amused.  They need to suspend their disbelief in order to accept how stupid Darryl and Vanessa are.  Wayans (Keenan) never establishes how old "baby Calvin" is supposed to be.  He appears and acts anywhere from 2 to 5.  It is funny watching Wayans' (Marlon) face on such a small body, but that gets old after a few minutes.  The rest of the movie is him hitting Wayans (Shawn) in the crotch, or leering after Washington or Brittany Daniel (White Chicks, Club Dread).  The jokes repeat themselves after a while, and the attempt at some heart late in the film falls on its head.

Haro Rates It: Pretty Bad.
1 hour, 30 minutes, Rated PG-13 for crude and sexual humor throughout, language, and brief drug references.

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