Starring Marlon Wayans and Shawn Wayans. Rated PG.

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In hockey, there is no family quite like the Sutters of Viking, Alberta, which saw six of their seven boys parlay modest skill--compounded with grit and leadership--into lengthy NHL careers.

The Wayans are the Sutters of American comedy. Eldest brother Keenen Ivory Wayans, cowriter of 1987's Hollywood Shuffle with Robert Townshend, broke out as director, writer, and star of the hilarious blaxploitation pastiche I'm Gonna Git You Sucka in 1988. His TV series In Living Color was a massive hit and career boost for future superstar Jim Carrey, dancer Jennifer Lopez, actors Tommy Davidson, Jamie Foxx, Chris Rock, and David Alan Grier, and writers Steve Oedekerk and Colin Quinn. It also launched the entertainment careers of Keenen's siblings Damon, Kim, Marlon, and Shawn, who have in turn populated numerous films and shows, singly and in concert.

Which brings us to White Chicks, directed by Keenen, and starring the youngest brothers, Marlon and Shawn. Like the first two Scary Movies, the preceeding Wayans family effort, White Chicks is a compilation of silly moments, gross jokes, and occasional jarring violence; more than a sketch but not quite a film. Its ultimate destiny will be as a video that you can leave running during a party. You can wander in and out to get beer or debate with your friends about the best parts without needing to pay attention. That's because any one portion of White Chicks contains the sum of its appeal: Shawn and Marlon in drag (and white).

It goes like this: Shawn (goateed) and Marlon (clean-shaven) are hipster dudes who happen to work for the FBI. As punishment for blowing a big case, they are assigned to escort a couple of repellent party-girl socialites (transparently modelled on the Hilton sisters) to a social engagement in the Hamptons. But they inadvertently injure the girls and come up with the severely cockamamie idea of impersonating them at the party, which is three hours away.

Laughs, theoretically, ensue.

The logic of the setup troubled me a great deal. First, how could these FBI guys so quickly and secretly (their superiors do not know) obtain movie-quality makeup personnel who can create and apply face and body moulds of the injured babes? Secondly, how do these FBI guys know enough of what socialites act like to pass off as them? Finally, they don't really look like the women. They look like embalmed freaks doing a mockery of mincing camp, creating sexually uncomfortable scenarios (especially with massive Terry Crews), which, I guess, is the whole point.

For locals, an additional pleasure of the film is seeing bits of Vancouver scenery and actors. Wayans semiregular Lochlyn Munro plays an uptight FBI agent, and I caught my buddy Ken as an extra in a party scene.