"Black and White" breaks nearly all of the rules of a traditional movie.
There is essentially no plot, only a set of circumstances. There are no central characters - instead there are about a dozen characters of equal importance. Of those dozen characters, none are protagonists and all are highly flawed individuals. The movie has the most conversational dialogue of any movie this year.
It's also probably the most boring movie of the year.
"Black and White" takes a glance at race relations between young blacks, and young whites who try to imitate them. But that's really all it takes - a glance. The rest of the movie uses tired stereotypes to try to poke fun at cultural differences. The movie is highly unsuccessful either as a drama or a comedy, however, and would really only have worked as a true to life documentary. (As a subplot, one of the characters in the movie - a movie maker played by Brooke Shields - is making a documentary about white youth imitating black culture.)
However, knowing that every line in this movie was scripted and acted defeats any type of message the movie was trying to make. It's unfortunate to say the movie could have benefited from more of a Hollywood feel, but it at least should have had a similar formula.
Additionally, the movie makes extremely poor use of some high name talent. Elijah Wood, Brooke Shields, Robert Downey Jr., Ben Stiller and Claudia Schiffer all come away with weak performances - mostly because of weakly written characters. Maybe the most entertaining performance is by Mike Tyson, who plays himself and, for the most part, is pretty true to life. He doesn't make himself out to be a hero, which goes a little ways in helping the credibility in the film.
It's unfortunate that with such a volatile theme, the script of "Black and White" could become such a dud. Nevertheless, there is no entertainment value to this film, and even less of a lesson to be learned.
There is essentially no plot, only a set of circumstances. There are no central characters - instead there are about a dozen characters of equal importance. Of those dozen characters, none are protagonists and all are highly flawed individuals. The movie has the most conversational dialogue of any movie this year.
It's also probably the most boring movie of the year.
"Black and White" takes a glance at race relations between young blacks, and young whites who try to imitate them. But that's really all it takes - a glance. The rest of the movie uses tired stereotypes to try to poke fun at cultural differences. The movie is highly unsuccessful either as a drama or a comedy, however, and would really only have worked as a true to life documentary. (As a subplot, one of the characters in the movie - a movie maker played by Brooke Shields - is making a documentary about white youth imitating black culture.)
However, knowing that every line in this movie was scripted and acted defeats any type of message the movie was trying to make. It's unfortunate to say the movie could have benefited from more of a Hollywood feel, but it at least should have had a similar formula.
Additionally, the movie makes extremely poor use of some high name talent. Elijah Wood, Brooke Shields, Robert Downey Jr., Ben Stiller and Claudia Schiffer all come away with weak performances - mostly because of weakly written characters. Maybe the most entertaining performance is by Mike Tyson, who plays himself and, for the most part, is pretty true to life. He doesn't make himself out to be a hero, which goes a little ways in helping the credibility in the film.
It's unfortunate that with such a volatile theme, the script of "Black and White" could become such a dud. Nevertheless, there is no entertainment value to this film, and even less of a lesson to be learned.