"Where's the Money?" Where's the Black Beefcake?

There was a guy who used to play basketball in the campus gym while I was running laps.  Whenever he made a basket, he would yell "Give me my money!  Give me my money!" at the top of his lungs. I assumed that he was quoting a rap song.

Where's the Money (2017) is not all about the Benjamins.  South Central kid Del (Andrew Bachelor, right) needs money to keep his father's gym open.  Calling from prison, Dad reveals that years ago he and Uncle Leon (Terry Crews flexing his biceps) stole $1 million and hid it in the basement of a flop house.   So Del goes to retrieve it. 

Unfortunately, the flop house is now home to a college fraternity, KAX (the college is never identified, but I'm guessing USC).   

Del tries to get into the basement by posing as a safety inspector.  When that doesn't work, he consults with his buds Alicia (Kat Graham) and Juice (Allen Maldonado, left), and comes up with the plan of pledging the fraternity.

Wait -- don't you actually have to be admitted to the college first?

There are three main frat boys:
1. Brock (Devon Werkheiser, unrecognizable from his turn on Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide)
2. Eddie (Logan Paul).
3. Clarke (Josh Brenner)

They are all paralyzed by white guilt, constantly policing each other for racist microaggressions:

 "How dare you say that that our new pledge looks like that fake inspector!  Implying that all black people look alike -- that's racist, man!"  So Del can easily play them.

The interactions are very funny.  I rarely laugh out loud at a movie, but I was laughing constantly.

By the way, Logan Paul's muscles are ubiquitous in the trailer and posters, and he is indeed shirtless in nearly every scene,but he's not a major character.  He has maybe three lines.   

Problem: Del starts to bond with the frat boys.  They become family.  He doesn't want to deceive them, or steal the money that is now rightfully theirs (due to an obscure, made-up legal loophole).

Another problem: The sociopathic Uncle Leon and a gang banger named Trap (Method Man of the Wu Tang Clan) also want the money.  If Del can't get it through his sneakiness, they'll go in with guns blazing.

Not to worry: this is a comedy, so everything is revealed and forgiven in the end.  Uncle Leon gets clobbered.  Trap gives up gang-banging and takes a job at the gym.  The frat boys start to volunteer at the gym, and Del enrolls at the college for real.

Heterosexism:  Suprisingly little.  The frat boys give lip service to "getting pussy," but their heterosexual shenanigans are limited to one scene, where Alicia distracts Brock while Juice tries to retrieve the money in the same room.

Del has a fade-out kiss with The Girl (Alicia), but before that they have such a laid-back, nonsexual relationship that I thought she was Juice's girlfriend.

Gay Characters: None, or all of them.  There is a decided lack of heterosexual interest in this movie. But no specific same-sex pairs. 

At a bachelor auction, where sorority girls bid on the new pledges, there's a brief shot of frat boy Eddie (Logan Paul) with a bidding paddle.I'm not sure what that means.

Beefcake:  The black actors are rather circumspect -- Terry Crews flexes to be menacing, not to be hot.  But the white actors are usually shirtless, sometimes pantsless.  I don't know what that's about.  Black people can't be objects of desire? 

I give it a B+.

See also: Jake and Logan Paul; Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide