The recent success of the Charlie's Angels films guarantees several years of rip-offs and parodies. Thus enters the direct to video spoof Carlito's Angels. You know the drill; a mystery man assembles a trio of females to fight crime, only this time it's with an urban twist.

Compared to the source material, these girls are a bit less ambitious. Tina's (Alessandra Ramos) claim to fame is her rotten mouth and all around bad attitude, which of course makes it near impossible for her to hold down a job. Next is Marisol (Jeni Garcia), who does nothing but smoke pot all day. To round up the threesome is Roxy (Evly Pacheco), mother of a small army of kids due to the fact that she has a little trouble saying no.

The story, if you can call it that, begins when Carlito calls the girls from his prison cell. It seems a neighbor was caught cheating on his wife. This news surprises no one, but when the girls learn that the girl he did it with was white they're immediately disgusted. Carlito dispatches his 'angels' to track down the girl at the local strip joint that's owned by the mob; you know those "guinea mother fuckers." Upon investigation, the girls discover that local thug Triple Gauge and Roxy's landlord are working with the mob to rig the local numbers game. Since the numbers game is "the only dream some people in the ghetto have" they're off on a mission to stop them.

I don't lie, when I say that we spend the rest of the movie watching the girls either smoking pot or engaging in endless, pointless arguments. We get a lot of eye rolling, excessive hand gestures, and such wonderful dialogue as "Oh please, we don't want no scrub." There's just not much of any actual substance in the entire film. In fact there's even a scene in the middle, several minutes long, that jumps out of the movie into real life to show the director yelling at everyone on set. It all adds up to a lot of wasted time, whose only saving grace is that the girls strike a provocative pose every once in a while.

I'm just not sure what the real intent of this movie is. On one hand, it's supposed to be goofy, slapstick fun but the general lack of a meaningful script means it completely misses the mark. What's here is just a conglomeration of stale stereotypes and trite pop culture references that tries real hard to convince you it's funnier than it really is. On the other hand, if the goal was to provide an excuse to gawk at some attractive women, then it's way too tame to fit that bill. To be blunt, this film has the plot, script, and cast to make a good porno but has none of the things that make watching a porno, or even a late night cable skin flick, worth it.

Acting ability in this film is best measured as the converse of good looks, and believe me this trio of actresses is quite attractive. Of course the script doesn't help them any, pigeonholing them into the most generic of possible roles. I do believe the writer and director, known only as Agustin, shows a lot of promise behind the camera, but if this is indicative of his writing he needs to hire someone to pen his next film immediately.

It seems Agustin's skill lies completely on the technical side, displaying a keen eye for interesting shots and clever camera angles. The included documentary interview shows that his head is in the right place, and he's admirably struggling to make films simply because he loves doing so. Hopefully, in the future that passion will transfer into something a bit more enjoyable to watch.

The DVD, besides the ridiculously overdone cover art, is a pretty good package. Shot on digital video, the image is generally sharp and clean. There's a bit of blurring during zooms, but it only occurs in a few places. Sound doesn't fair quite as well, as there are several instances of low volume where the dialogue is tough to understand. A Spanish track is included, but it unfortunately sounds even worse. Besides the documentary mentioned above, other extras include an image gallery, a bunch of trailers including Spider Babe, and a montage of comic book drawings similar to those that make up the opening credit sequence.

Despite the solid presentation I just can't recommend this one. Carlito's Angels inspires to be an urban version of the TV show V.I.P., except it's nowhere near as clever or funny. To use the vernacular from the film, just don't go there.