Too little soap to get a good wash

FILMMAKER DJ Pooh is no stranger to disjointed, pointless, overwrought urban comedies.

He was the mastermind behind 2000’s brash brain-dead farce 3 Strikes, and now Pooh conjures up another flaccid farce in the inept comedy The Wash.

As with 3 Strikes, Pooh wants to convey The Wash as a hip, rambunctious inner city offering that showcases its rollicking homeboys.

Basically, the feeling is that you can’t go wrong when featuring the likes of intense hip-hop personalities such as Snoop Dogg and Dr Dre. Alas, the soundtrack is the only asset to this mindless flick.

Roommates Sean (Dr Dre) and Dee Loc (Snoop Dogg) are a couple of cutups who live for turmoil. When Sean gets fired from his job, he’s left with practically nothing to show for his life.

With no car and the possibility of imminent eviction from his apartment, Sean is desperate for work. Dee Loc informs him of a position at his work — a nearby south central LA car wash run by Mr Washington (George Wallace), where, as luck would have it, Mr Washington has just fired his assistant manager.

And so Sean is hired, making him Dee Loc’s superior. Thanks to his new status as boss, Sean starts to abuse his authority and in the process alienates his subordinates.

Predictably, Sean’s charges are colourful: the brooding and bulky Bear (Tiny Lister Jr); C-Money (Lamont Bentley), a cretin who steals items from the customers’ cars; and token Hispanic poster boy Juan (Demetrius Navarro).

Of course, Dee Loc ends up being the real thorn in Sean’s side. By exploiting the conflict-of-interest angle based on their friendship, both buddies end up getting on each other’s nerves.

If Sean is not acting like a mighty holier-than-thou cad, then Dee Loc is acting like a hedonistic hood.

The guy steals like there’s no tomorrow, engages in random sex acts with his fine-looking babes, and deals drugs on the side.

And the chaos festers into something sillier and outrageously drawn out. Mr Washington becomes a target of a kidnapping led by local losers Slim (Pooh) and Face (Shawn Fonteno).

Snoop Dogg doesn’t make effective use of his ultra-slick persona, mumbling incoherently through a lame plot.

Dr Dre has the potential to be a commanding and cocky movie star who’s forceful and likeable, but here he’s little but a shadow to Snoop. And comedian George Wallace is wasted as the irascible Mr Washington.

The direction is sluggish and the material is devoid of anything remotely entertaining.

What could have been a delicious hoot about dysfunctional dynamics in a disillusioned workplace merely ends up as a woeful, clunky comedy of errors.