Kabluey: Another Tired Family Values Tale About Women As Bad Parents Without Men Around

By Prairie Miller

A dysfunctional family frolic about a guy whose day job entails getting himself stuck inside a gigantic promotional mascot costume known as Kabluey, the movie that goes by the same name is itself an equally ill-fitting matchup of sorts between Daddy Day Care and Desperate Housewives. There's also a sidebar about a soldier stuck in a different kind of outfit in Iraq, that seems tossed in for cheap sentimentality when the jokes fizzle out.

Scott Prendergrast, who was last seen salivating around Paris Hilton in The Hottie And The Nottie, directs himself here - never a good sign - as Salman, the loser brother-in-law of sourpuss mom, Leslie (Lisa Kudrow in whining shrew mode). Salman's brother - Leslie's soldier spouse - has been stationed in Iraq and is due to return in four months. But Leslie has a slim tolerance for loneliness, or single motherhood, and she's transformed into a rejecting mom to her two inevitably maladjusted young sons, while possibly prowling around for a new man on the sly.

When Leslie sends out an SOS to the extended family that she's got to go back to work to make ends meet or lose her health insurance - and needs a babysitter like right now - Salman, who's just been dumped from his own job, turns up on her doorstep. His far from enthused sad sack sister-in-law makes no secret of her displeasure and contempt for the unappreciated Salman, who's really doing her a big favor. Especially considering that his bratty nephews from hell have conspired to make his life miserable, when not outright threatening to kill him. At one point, the terrorist tots pour powdered disinfectant down the throat of their sleeping uncle. This is supposed to be funny. Laugh track, please?

Some solidly kooky moments do materialize when Salman gets a job passing out fliers on a rural highway in that Kabluey costume, and during his hard time in solitary confinement inside that blue bubble decides trying his hand at some suited up superhero stuff, by righting various wrongs around him. But between far too many puke jokes and grating malicious personalities, there's something really fake about the entire proceedings, that exposes careless research about fairly important matters.

First and foremost, the wives of deployed military men don't need to struggle to make ends meet, or for their children's health insurance. Hello, those benefits are provided for soldier families by the government. There's also something a little tacky about using the Iraq conflict as an incidental plot device, and with absolutely nothing revealed about that war, the related issues, or who this soldier, so central to everything else happening in this movie, actually is. As for that Kabluey suit, Prendergrast spends most of the movie emphasizing his captivity squirming around inside that fashion nightmare, then later on simply slips out of it and is on his way.

Kabluey, a whole lot of thin storytelling and thick outerwear with one central sob story, and Iraq as an afterthought.

Regent Releasing
PG-13
2 stars