Higher Learning

I wish Singleton would keep his obvious bias racially feelings out of his movies and just make a movie that's real, instead of this laughable, trite garbage.

Example: In the movie 'Boyz In The Hood', Laurence Fishburne is giving a speech to his son and son's buddy and says "Why do you think there's a liquor store and gun store on every single corner in black neighborhoods? I'll tell you why. Because they want us to kill ourselvs." Yes, I can see how movies with black people suggesting evil white people are conspiring to kill all black people by "making them kill each other" will advance race relations.

As for Higher Learning, I think the title should have been shortened to 'High'. One must be very high to watch a movie like this and feel 'enlightened' by the end of the movie.

Let's see, basically all white males in this movie are either one of two things: Very bad or very weak. All black people are either cool, heroic, intelligent or victims.

Whites in this movie: The evil racist campus security, the evil white jock rapist, the weak white hippy who tries his hardest to understand Malik but Malik turns him down, the weak Jewish roommate who shits his pants like a little girl when Remmy pulls a gun on him, yet Malik plays it cool of course, and of course the oh so very evil and BAAAAD nazi skinheads! Oh yes, nazi skinheads are just killing black people daily in college campuses and all over the country. And of course the skinheads are very weak and stupid like Remmy.

Blacks in the movie: Laurence Fishurne as a wise professor, the strong black woman "I don't take no buuuulllshit" roommate, Ice Cube's cool street smart character, Malik's "struggle" to find himself in an evil white man's world, Tyra Bank's intelligent character who becomes a victim, Busta' Rhymes beating up two skinheads at one time etc etc.

What a bunch of laughable and ridiculous clichés. Singleton definitely has a chip on his shoulder when it comes to white people. This movie was every bit as racist as any pro nazi skinhead documentary. Worst movie ever made.

"The opposing groups are just too clearly defined and what we are left with is a comic strip or a caricature, even down to the pipe smoking professor".They even did a bad job on their stereotyping. Laurance Fishburn's accent sounded scottish when you just really anticipate an english accent to go with that pipe.

In one scene where the two parties have their first confrontation I just kept waiting for them to start laughing and it turn into a comedy. I had the hardest time believing these people were serious. They expect you to believe this is *really* how people live but you just dont see it cause you're blind.

After seeing this film I can't help but wonder what the screenwriting process was for Singleton. Higher Learning is a movie with every cliche I can imagine; really very pathetic. Higher Learning is good for one reason, it forces you to think about racial issues if you hadn't already, but once the glimmer of the racially just manifesto you created wears off, you realize what a load of crap this movie was. Acting was good, even Tyra Banks, who I wasn't expecting anything from, didn't make me want to gouge my eyes out. The story is, as I mentioned, cliche. It's not so bad that you should demand the money back from Blockbuster but if you really want to see a "racially profound" film, choose something else.

good acting, bad script...this film attempted to cover every issue of a controversial nature that one might experience in college...problem is the film's too short to effectively and realistically explore and resolve these issues (if he had his heart set on making a film about racism, lesbianism, rape, and interracial conformity then perhaps Singleton might have wanted to invest in a cable mini-series) and for this what we got was a mix of stereotypes/cliches that made this too predictable and, at times, ridiculous to watch. Nevertheless, great acting from Epps, Rappaport and Fishburne.

I found this film to be heavily laden with stereotypes - everything from the depiction of fraternity members being sexist, skirt-chasing rapists, to the african-american male doing the 'hood walk, to the white male hick who just has to end up becoming a neo-Nazi. The ending was uncalled for and decidedly cheesy. Makes you wonder if the writers/director ever went to college, and if so which ones, cause the one I went to was not nearly as exciting. I realize that Mr. Singleton was attempting to deal with multiple issues in a limited timespan, which accounts for the film having very little by way of realism, but that doesn't excuse many of the situations being as over the top as they were, nor does it warrant such heavy usage of stereotypes.

And the near lack of non-black and non-white (I don't count Jewish people as not being white) characters only served to lessen my respect for this piece of work. I am South Asian myself (that's the Indian subcontinent for those who feel geographically challenged) and, in general, find our lack of presence in any mainstream production about higher education just a little bit annoying, especially given the large numbers of such people on any college campus. And by presence, I don't mean "boy at fountain" or "girl in classroom" cardboard characters. I mean real, live people with relevant parts.

The cinematography, on the other hand, was great. His crowd scenes in particular were shot beautifully.

After being blown away by Boyz n' the 'hood, I was very disappointed by Higher Learning. I give it a 4 out of 10.