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Following up on his acclaimed 1998 release "Slam", filmmaker Marc Levin has joined creative forces with performance artist Danny Hoch for "Whiteboys", a hip-hop-themed satire starring Hoch as a wannabe gangsta rapper.

All the posturing and posing is funny for about five minutes, after which it becomes apparent that this extended vehicle for one of Hoch's solo-show characters doesn't have the content to sustain its feature-length format with its awkward attempts at social commentary.

Commercial prospects seem similarly limited. Urban audiences won't be flocking to a movie about a crew of Midwestern white boys who keep it real by freely addressing each other with the "n" word, and the white-boy demo will unlikely be drawn by what is essentially threadbare sketch material with message-movie aspirations.

Hoch's working-class Flip spends most of his time hanging with his Holyoke crew -- the Iowa Gangsta Blood Thugs -- which also includes the hot-tempered James (Dash Mihok) and the apologetically middle-class Trevor (Mark Webber).

He talks the talk and attempts to walk the walk, convincing himself that he's black on the inside, but Flip isn't content being Little Homie on the Prairie. His big dream is to take up residence in the projects of Chicago, where he'd earn some serious street cred and be embraced as a bona fide rap star by the likes of Snoop Dogg, Slick Rick and Doug E. Fresh.

Naturally, most of his peers regard him as a freak, and even his girlfriend Sara (Piper Perabo) begins to have doubts about him. His upper-class black friend Khalid (Eugene Byrd) finds his behavior cringe-inducing but nevertheless allows himself to be talked into escorting Flip and his buddies to Cabrini Green, where Flip is intent on scoring some drugs and getting a firsthand taste of the true gangsta life.

Surprise! Things go very wrong, and a seriously disillusioned Flip ends up having a major identity crisis -- leading, of course, to some eye-opening truths about himself and a whole new way of "keeping it real."

There are no doubt a lot of Flips out there, and Hoch, who first introduced the character in his one-man-show "Jails, Hospitals & Hip-Hop" (which is also set to be made into a feature film), certainly has a keen eye and ear for character. But in a feature-film setting, Flip quickly becomes a grating presence, and despite attempts by Hoch and Levin -- working with co-writers Garth Belcon and Richard Stratton, respectively -- to give everything a greater context, the results feel simultaneously forced and insufficient.

It might have Snoop Dogg and Slick Rick both on screen and on the soundtrack, but when it comes to delivering the controversial, edgy goods, "Whiteboys" is a spineless wannabe.

WHITEBOYS

Fox Searchlight

Fox Searchlight presents in association

with BAC Films and Le Studio Canal Plus

An Offline Entertainment Group production

Director: Marc Levin

Screenwriters: Garth Belcon & Danny Hoch and Marc Levin & Richard Stratton

Story: Garth Belcon & Danny Hoch

Producers: Henri M. Kessler, Richard Stratton and Ezra Swerdlow

Executive producers: David Peipers, John Sloss

Director of photography: Mark Benjamin

Production designer: David Doernberg

Editor: Emir Lewis

Costume designer: Carolyn Greco

Music supervisors: Lisa West, Patricia Joseph

Music: Che Guevara

Color/stereo

Cast:

Flip: Danny Hoch

James: Dash Mihok

Trevor: Mark Webber

Sara: Piper Perabo

Khalid: Eugene Byrd

Darius: Bonz Malone

Running time -- 89 minutes

MPAA rating: R...