What The Brady Bunch Movie was to cheesy '70s white pop culture, Undercover Brother is to cheesy '70s black pop culture.

And it throws in some Naked Gun-style slapstick for that extra Afro sheen.

Malcolm D. Lee -- a cousin of Spike, and a sure-footed filmmaker in his own right based on his 1999 debut The Best Man -- creates one of the smarter genre spoofs in years.

On one level it's a hilarious time-waster that throws racial stereotypes around like pies, on another (if you want to dig that deep) it's a canny sendup of Hollywood blackfacery, a la Bamboozled.

If nothing else, Lee has accomplished the near impossible by making a funny movie with Chris Kattan in it. Moreover, he did it without anyone accidentally ingesting some sort of bodily fluid. Is that even allowed these days?

Like the movie Bradys, Undercover Brother (Eddie Griffin) is an unexplained '70s throwback in a modern world. (That modern world is Toronto, by the way. Watch for landmarks.)

With Parliament-Funkadelic as his constant soundtrack, Griffin's Undercover Brother sports Bruce Lee moves and an Afro that makes him look like "Macy Gray in porkchop sideburns," and tools around in his Caddy, the self-proclaimed "Robin Hood of the 'Hood.' "

All of which dovetails with the agenda of The Brotherhood, a secret organization dedicated to "Truth, Justice and the Afro-American Way" and which seeks to help Black America find the mojo it lost somewhere between Shaft and Urkel.

Instead of names, the Brotherhood members have stereotypical monikers -- Sista Girl (Aunjanue Ellis), Smart Brother (Malcolm In The Middle's Gary Anthony Williams), the blunt-smokin' Conspiracy Brother (Dave Chappelle) and The Chief (Boston Public's Chi McBride), who looks adoringly to his wall photo of Danny Glover for inspiration.

There's also the white office intern Lance, played by ex-Doogie Hauser Neil Patrick Harris, hired under "affirmative action" laws.

Lined up against them is an organization led by The Man (Robert Trumbull), which has created a drug that makes righteous black men turn Tom.

The guinea pig is a Colin Powell-esque war hero (Billy Dee Williams) who, under the influence of said drug, calls a press conference not to announce his run for the presidency, but to launch a chain of fried chicken joints.

(This entails self-spoofery on Billy Dee's part, when he advertises a "meal deal" that includes a 32-ouncer of malt liquor -- Billy Dee in real life being an exspokesman for Colt 45).

There are more "white people do this, black people do that" gags than an entire season of Def Comedy Jam routines -- but with mo' better delivery.

The Man's henchpeople, White She Devil (Denise Richards) and the secretly-jiggy Mr. Feather (Kattan), carry out the scheme to defend the White status quo of mayonnaise, Friends and Murder, She Wrote.

I think you get the picture. What is there to say but "Solid!"? (More on Undercover Brother)

(This film is rated PG)

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