Foolish

Foolish Waise sort of grows on you. This is, after all, a streetwise black stand-up comic who performs with a microphone in one hand and a glass of white wine in the other.

His humor can be painfully simplistic, consisting sometimes of the observation that there are white people in his audience and, boy, are they nervous. A lot of the time he just seems to be trying to see how many times he can use the vulgar slang terms in a single sentence.

But once in a while, he bursts out with humor that comes from somewhere deeper. Like the comments about his father, who disappeared before Foolish (originally named Miles) was born but now turns up asking for a free ticket to his son's show. Free ticket? How about what his father owes him? "Hey, where's my Big Wheel?" Foolish demands in his stand-up routine. "Where's my G.I. Joe?" He also has some clever observations about slave trade routes and hurricanes.

Foolish is played by Eddie Griffin (the star of the UPN sitcom "Malcolm and Eddie"), and his story is loosely based on Griffin's own road to success. "Foolish," which also stars the rapper Master P as the title character's criminal brother, is rough and blustery, but its heart is often in the right place, and Griffin shows some real acting ability in the more serious scenes, especially when he's required to shed his bravado.

The plot is primarily about Foolish's struggle to succeed as a comic without selling out, but there are subplots about his rocky relationship with his girlfriend and his brother's career woes. The brother, who does well enough as a gangster to wear a chunky gold chain, diamond-framed eyeglasses and frighteningly bright clothes, runs into some trouble when he is accidentally responsible for the death of his boss's cousin. That takes place in a peculiar early scene about poker players and an armed robbery (or what seems to be one) that leads to a heart attack.

The film loses complete credibility when the audiences at the comedy clubs where Foolish works go wild with delight, way out of proportion to the hilarity of the material. Foolish is just a little too smug about his artistic integrity.

Maybe there really are struggling young comics out there who would be able to turn down a Paramount film offer of a starring role (possibly with Harrison Ford) because cross-dressing was involved _ without even thinking it over for a few minutes; when Foolish does it, it's not convincing. But then this is not a tolerant man. W4 DESERET NEWS, FRIDAY, JUNE 25, 1999