Watching "Black Listed", you might think that this was a project by a first-time, inexperienced director. But this was actually made by Robert Townsend, who has had plenty of film experience since his breakthrough feature "Hollywood Shuffle" in the '80s. You'd never guess it, because this is a real amateurish production. The fact that it was filmed in widescreen but presented fullscreen on the DVD (meaning that people's heads are cut off at the sides), may be not Townsend's fault, but everything else is. The movie is badly shot, looking very grainy and like a fourth-generation bootleg. The screenplay is bad, taking no time to set up the characters and the situation at the beginning of the movie, and being vague on details throughout. The acting by everyone is remarkably bad. And Townsend brings in no production values. There are even goofs like seeing the squib cables in a scene where someone gets shot. Again, it's hard to believe a professional like Townsend could make such a terrible movie like this. I'd really like to see a documentary about the making of this movie - it would surely be more entertaining than the movie itself.
