November 15–22, 2001

movie shorts

The Wash

Dr. Dre and Snoop are roommates in need of rent money: Snoop sends Dre to get a job down at the car wash where he already works (and sells weed on the side); when boss man George Wallace hires Dre as assistant manager, performance anxiety and resentment ensue. Episodic, rowdy and eventually disappointing, D.J. Pooh’s comedy doesn’t have the class-analytical bite of Michael Schultz and Joel Schumacher’s 1976 classic Car Wash, nor is it as light on its feet. Bruce Bruce plays a friendly toy cop and Angell Conwell is the eye-rolling receptionist, Pauly Shore cameos as a mafia victim stuck in a trunk, Shaq and Xzibit as angry customers and Eminem as a psycho angling to wreak vengeance on Wallace for firing him. I think there’s a message here about true friendship overcoming workplace pecking orders, or something, but really, it’s about Dre and Snoop getting their friends together and having a good time on the set. And Snoop, again, is great fun to watch.

—Cindy Fuchs

(AMC Andorra; AMC Orleans; UA Cheltenham; UA Riverview; UA Sameric; UA 69th St.)