HIGHER LEARNING
A film review by Eric Grossman
Copyright 1995 LOS ANGELES INDEPENDENT
Bad roommates, rape, race wars, College life can be tricky, especially if you are a student at Columbus University, the fictitious setting of the new film, HIGHER LEARNING.
Directed by John Singleton (BOYS `N THE HOOD), HIGHER LEARNING follows three freshmen for a semester as they struggle to find themselves against a backdrop of racial tension and sexual victimization. The central character is Malik Williams (Omar Epps), a hotshot track athlete who, with the help of his friend Fudge (Ice Cube) and his professor (Laurence Fishburne), discovers there is more to life than running. There is also Kristen (Kristy Swanson), eighteen years old and sheltered until she is date-raped by a fraternity guy and becomes a beacon for campus activism. Finally, there is Remy (Michael Rapaport), a lonely, unstable kid from Idaho who is overwhelmed by the diversity of campus life and falls in with a group of skinheads.
HIGHER LEARNING begins on the right foot. The first half-hour focuses on the three characters and their friends in a college world that seems quasi-realistic. There are entertaining scenes of roommates and their problems, financial-aid offices and boring lectures. Singleton begins with subtlety, revealing little hints of what is to come for our characters and the paths they are to take. Malik resents his coach and professor while Kristen attempts to fit in with her sorority sisters but we see quiet signs of her unease with that group. Remy never quite works as a character because he begins as a seemingly good, quiet guy who gets stepped on and then all of sudden, he's a lunatic, ready to kill every minority he finds.
After the first act, Singleton abruptly changes gears into the Oliver Stone/Spike Lee school of sledgehammer filmmaking. All of the nuances of the first thirty minutes are thrown out the window in favor of overbearing stereotypes and clics. The rest of the film is a drawn out race war between Remy and his psychotic skinheads and Malik and his angry African-American buddies. There are haphazard time-outs to show Kristy as she becomes infatuated with Taryn (Jennifer Connelly), a feminist activist and her other relationship with Wayne (Jason Wiles).
One thing that can be said for HIGHER LEARNING is its solid cast. Epps, Swanson and Rapaport rise above Singleton's good to mediocre dialogue. As Malik's friend and mentor Fudge, Ice Cube is one of the movie's highlights. A limited actor but possessing a powerful persona, Ice Cube steals every scene he's in. It is ironic that he gives a much stronger performance than Laurence Fishburne. Normally a superb actor with tremendous presence, Fishburne is maddeningly weak in his portrayal of Professor Phipps. With an accent that is somewhere between Jean-Claude Van Damme's and some other dialect, Fishburne's magnetism is undercut and he is never able to rise above the material.
The cast also includes: Regina King, Tyra Banks, Jason Wiles, Cole Hauser and Busta Rhymez. Director of photography was Peter Lyons Collister and the editor was Bruce Cannon. Keith Brian Burns was the production designer and Stanely Clarke wrote the score.
Full of good intentions but lacking the proper execution, HIGHER LEARNING is sometimes a movie, most of the time a polemic. Singleton has a lot to say but the problem is that he forgot the first valuable thing you learn in film school, that in movies, it is more powerful to show, not tell.
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