Who's Your Caddy isn't just a wretched exercise in formulaic hack writing, lazy acting and appalling stereotyping — it's also just sort of icky. It's the kind of picture that makes you want to take a shower afterward, as seedy in its own way as a mid-'70s soft-core porn.
Part of that discomfort can be blamed on the presence of sad sack Jeffrey Jones, not simply because he's a known pedophile and a convicted sex-offender but due to his desperate willingness to take any sorry gig thrown his way. In a rehash of his signature asshole character (Ed Rooney in Ferris Bueller's Day Off), Jones plays the venal Cummings, chairman of the ultra exclusive Carolina Pines Golf and Polo Club. Jones sits in judgment over the elite membership admissions, surrounded by a phalanx of patrician stuffed shirts in leather chairs, all sucking on obscenely large cigars, like bloated plutocrats in an antiquated political cartoon. Into this chummy circle of exclusivity comes the instant chaos of multi-platinum selling rapper Chris "C-Note" Hawkins (Antwan Andre Patton, "Big Boi" of Outcast fame), and his loud and proud crew of hangers-on and assorted partiers. Of course, Mr. Note's membership application immediately hits the crapper — the only snag is his recent real estate purchase that includes part of the 17th fairway.
Faster than you can say "No, you didn't," an 18-hole war erupts, complete with booty dancers, SUV golf carts and numerous fart and pee-pee gags. Just when you can't stomach another "white guy is shocked at black guy's size at the urinal" gag, the movie starts to get sappy with a subplot about restoring the honor of Chris' late daddy, whose course record is unjustly missing from the record books.
And the large supporting cast has time to demean themselves, including creepy man-boy Andy Millonakis, funny fatty Faizon Love, and the ever-present hulking frame of Terry Crews. It all plays out like a chitlin circuit production of Caddyshack, complete with a slobs-vs.-snobs setup complicated by messy racial politics. It's awfully hard for a film to cry racism while it's busy extolling it, and it would be easier to root for the heroes if they were in fact keeping it real, instead of being rude buffoonish assholes. It also would be easier to overlook such glaring issues, if the film was, you know, funny. Presidential candidate John Edwards often talks about two Americas, and he's right: In one of them, the suckers will eat this swill up, and in the other, more hopeful land, audiences will demand more with their Milk Duds.
Corey Hall writes about film for Metro Times. Send comments to [email protected].
