Little Man
Directed by Keenen Ivory Wayans
Written by Keenen Ivory Wayans, Shawn Wayans and Marlon Wayans
Starring Shawn Wayans, Marlon Wayans, Tracy Morgan, Kerry Washington, John Witherspoon and Chazz Palminteri
Classification: PG
Rating: **½
More than a half-century after Looney Toons director Chuck Jones dropped Baby-Faced Finster down the rabbit hole in Baby Buggy Bunny, the Wayans brothers resurrect the idea of a short-of-stature robber pretending he's an orphan in order to retrieve the loot in Little Man, a hit-and-miss domestic comedy with a tandem diamond theft caper to keep the action lively.
Many of the comic bits are set up very early (you just know the diamond is destined for the diaper) and there are a few too many momentum-sapping scenes. But Little Man will probably satisfy fans of the Wayans - Keenen Ivory (director, co-writer), Marlon and Shawn (co-writers) - whose previous credits include Scary Movie and White Chicks. Calvin Sims, an itty-bitty two-bit criminal, is played by Marlon Wayans (the head) and a two-and-a-half-foot nine-year-old from Winnipeg named Linden Porco (body) with a support team of computer-generated imagery artists melding the performances together. It looks very convincing, and one can imagine the laughs during post-production when some of Wayans' highly expressive "facial" performances were fleshed out, so to speak, in the computer.
As the movie opens, Calvin is sprung from jail and is picked up by his hapless wannabe rapper sidekick Percy (Saturday Night Live alumnus Tracy Morgan). They drive directly to a jewellery store where they steal a large diamond for a stereotypical mob boss, Walken (Chazz Palminteri), who will pay them $100,000. It all goes according to plan - with Percy distracting a middle-aged saleswoman who happens to speak Ebonics - but the getaway car has been clamped by the police so the pair hide out in a convenience store.
In walk Darryl (Shawn Wayans) and Vanessa (Kerry Washington), a middle-class couple with no kids who have just left a restaurant where Vanessa announced her new promotion to Darryl, who had hoped her big news was that she was pregnant (this, by the way, is the first momentum-sapping scene). Calvin pops the diamond in Vanessa's purse and then it's a few baby steps to trading in his mack-daddy duds for a diaper. The only adult suspicious of Calvin is Vanessa's Pops (John Witherspoon), who lives with the family and has it out with Calvin later in the film.
Although the orphan's strange appearance is duly noted (there's a large, er, surprise the first time they change his diaper), the couple basically gets on with the business of caring for the toddler until the local child-services office opens on Monday. And that means a whole weekend of slapstick fun. It begins with a trip to the doctor (Calvin starts coughing like a pack-a-day smoker), who has never seen a toddler with a tattoo and bridge work, followed by a viewing by their initially flabbergasted neighbourhood friends with kids. Calvin gets a little too excited when one buxom blonde mommy starts bouncing him on her lap. As to be expected, there are a few gags about breast milk.
But one of the funniest scenes is the least off-colour. Calvin is put to bed his first night and stares up at the musical mobile. He has to keep awake in order to recover the diamond and sneak out of the house, but the spinning fuzzy creatures gradually lull him to sleep. This is much more subtle and funny physical comedy from Marlon Wayans than his randy ogling of neighbourhood moms and even Vanessa (Calvin wakes up in bed with them Sunday morning and she compliments her confused husband on his encore "performance" the previous night - yuck).
Another great comic scene involves a hilarious cameo performance by another SNL alum, Molly Shannon. She plays a multi-tasking, van-driving psycho-mom who changes a diaper while driving Darryl in a fast-and-furious chase after Calvin, who takes off in the car and with the diamond tucked into the diaper bag.
The really bad guys, Walken and two henchmen, eventually end up at the house looking for the diamond. Calvin, whose secret is out, returns to play baby one more time to help Darryl get out of the jam. In a true homage to Little Man's Looney Toons inspiration, Calvin is put in bed, then clobbers a thug with a large plastic baseball bat every time the light is turned off, which we see in cartoon silhouette. There's nothing like a well-placed nod to the classics to help elevate a dumb summer comedy.
Special to The Globe and Mail