Black & White

Black & White: a documentary director and her husband follows several upper middle class high school kids to try and comprehend why they have chosen to emulate black inner city hip-hop rappers.

What is intended to be an avante-garde-in-your-face mockumentary addressing serious sociological issues is a weak series of loosely interconnecting stories with poorly developed and uninteresting characters. The credits tout many big names - Robert Downey Jr., Ben Stiller, Brooke Shields among them - but the performances are lackluster at best: while Downey's stereotypical fey gay character borders on offensive, he can't compare with Mike Tyson's ludicrous attempts at philosophizing.

At least there are no shades of grey here - it is all bad.

I wish the the summary line I wrote was a joke, but unfortunately, it isn't. This film catered to every tired-out racial cliche known, and the dialogue was stilted and wooden. Every character was completely unbelievable. Nauseating. That anyone reviewed this film positively is a sign at just how far we have to go on matters of race...most people would rather lie to look PC than tell the truth and actually embrace people based on their own merit instead of having outmoded racial stereotypes.

By the way, it's "bass", not "base", Mr. Canadian Reviewer.

While many people may comment on the bad aspects of "Black and White", i believe the film had many interesting points. What society, especially those who are 'white' upper middle and middle class seem to NOT understand is that "Race" is Socially CONSTRUCTED. So if blacks want to be white, and whites want to be black, so what??? Why are you concerned? If you look at "Race" as a "social construction" and an IDEA that society has put on us, then you will see that there really is no difference, exept what society has tried to enforce. I think many upper white middle class people were offended because they think that trying to be black is going down another level, when you YOURSELF are being racist by saying that, which means again that you are another 'blind' follower of society. FACE IT! The world is changing and kids will do what they want to do, not what you want, especially when you dont want your kids adopting other cultures. The hardcore sex scenes between whites and blacks has been something that 'white' society has never been able to live with. Well, i am working on directing films, and trust me, that kind of sexual situations betweem whites and blacks will exist in ALL of my films, to help you see that there is NO such thing as RACE. Its constructed!!! Thats what 'Black and White' helps you to see. Do you really have to learn that from a high school student??

I always find the idea of improvised (or semi-improvised) film making an interesting one, even if the results themselves are disappointing, and very rarely work (exceptions being some of the movies of Christopher Guest and Abel Ferrara). It's a risky idea because it's a true test of an actors talent. Some succeed and some fall flat on their faces. 'Black and White' is a perfect example of this, for every interesting moment involving say Ben Stiller, or yes, Mike Tyson, there's way too many dull and rambling scenes that go nowhere (come on down Brooke Shields and Bijou Phillips). What makes this movie even more frustrating is James Toback is obviously aiming for a BIG STATEMENT regarding race relations in contemporary America, yet the movie is so superficial and confused it ultimately says nothing much. Toback is a maddingly uneven film maker, but he is responsible for one of my all time favourite movies, the sadly underrated 'Fingers', so I usually give him the benefit of the doubt. Unfortunately 'Black and White' is a missed opportunity and has very little to recommend it. I suppose Toback deserves some credit for at least attempting to do something other than mainstream Hollywood dreck, but ultimately a crappy movie is still a crappy movie, no matter how good the intentions.

Exploitative and depressingly awful film by James Toback about rich white kids and their identity-seeking obsession with all things black. Toback proudly stated that most of the actors were improvising their scenes and dialogue; didn't he know that it only makes him look worse for letting such a mess go on in front of his cameras? The performances otherwise are all good, especially from Marla Maples and Claudia Schiffer, two names I never thought I'd be giving praise to. Unfortunately, the film just seems to be constantly looking for new ways to p**s you off.