Black & White
Rating: 3 (out of 4)
The Info
MPAA Rating: R IMDB url: http://us.imdb.com/Title?0165643 Year of Release: 2000
The Nutshell
A group of high school kids mix up with a group of hip-hop artists as a documentarian strives to discover why today's youth seem attracted to black culture.
The Review
If Black & White, the new film from writer/director James Toback, is eventually remembered for only one thing, it will be the revelation that Brooke Shields, Claudia Schiffer, Marla Maples and Mike Tyson can act. However, this partly improvised gem will be remembered for more than that. Black & White is a fascinating film; it makes a statement about America's youth and hip-hop culture without getting heavy-handed overly serious. Featuring a cast of known commodities (Ben Stiller, Robert Downey Jr.) and hot newcomers (singers Bijou Phillips), Toback's is a complex film worth seeing.
Black & White has multiple storylines that are all related to each other, a la Robert Altman. There is Dean the basketball player (Allan Houston) who is asked to rig games for money by Mark Clear (Stiller) in exchange for fifty grand a game. This eventually spills over into the life of Dean's long-time friend Rich (Power), a gangsta who controls 20 city blocks of Harlem. Rich has to deal with the imminent opening of a white-owned club on his turf. Meanwhile, the young white girls who like to hang around with Rich and his homies get talked into being in a documentary by Sam Donager (Shields) and her gay husband Terry (Downey Jr.). Others who make appearances are William Lee Scott as the young white punk Will, Joe Pantoliano as his District Attorney father, Jared Leto as a high school teacher, Marla Maples as the mother of one of hip-hop crazed teens, Claudia Schiffer as Dean's girlfriend, and Mike Tyson as... Mike Tyson. The stories ebb and flow through the film, losing and gaining prominence over time. Friendships are lost, lovers are gained, and there is an occasional burst of violence.
Originally rated NC-17 in the United States, Black & White features a lot of sex between black gangstas and young white girls. While the film was trimmed down to a tamer R rating, viewers will wonder what could be more explicit than what they are seeing. The three-way sexual beginning of the film nicely warns viewers of what they are in for, and several audience members got up and left at that point. The frequent sex is one of the film's few flaws as the titillation is overdone and at times completely unrelated to anything else going on in the film.
To Toback's credit, the level of violence in Black & White is almost nil. These gangstas and hip-hop artists are given real problems and concerns, and only become gun-toting crazies when it benefits them to appear that way. Whenever a character finds himself on Donager's handheld digital camera, he starts spouting off righteous tirades on America and proclaims his independence, but not everyone has fully bought into the idea. Charlie (Phillips) is full of bluster about why she loves hip-hop, but admits that "in ten years time, I'll be way over this." These youth know they are going through a phase, and are simply enjoying it. Toback fills the spaces between these tirades with scenes that are lightweight and funny. Most of the humour comes from Mike Tyson, who provides the film's comic relief without really trying. He is given big words like vernacular to say, and as Rich tries to discuss a particular street problem with Tyson, he frequently has to ask him to use smaller words and explain himself better, playing on Tyson's image as a dimwit. But Tyson also gets the film's scariest moment. As he is mercilessly hit upon by the very gay Terry, Tyson is a marvel to watch as he fights to remain calm. The scene is entirely improvised, with Downey Jr. being told to just keep at Tyson until he gets a reaction. The reaction he gets, being slapped and then choked is astonishing, as Downey Jr's face turns a frightening shade of purple.
Black & White is a film about hip-hop culture, and the film's omnipresent hip-hop soundtrack strongly supports this. But Toback keeps things from becoming too serious; by moving from story to story as quickly as he does, Toback keeps us from becoming attached to any one character's struggle. Thus Black & White's message about hip-hop becomes secondary to the film itself. Toback just wants us to have fun and maybe learn a little about hip-hop along the way. And we do.
Copyright - Tim Chandler
e-mail the author: timbit@geocities.com
Adventures in Cinema - http://www.geocities.com/almigtypooba/
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