Some marketing guy must have held a seminar recently called "How To Make Your Movie Instantly Commercial" in which Step One was: Even if you don't return to it at any point later in the movie, have some lesbian kissing right in the first scene. Wisely advised, because--as you can read in my Romeo Must Die review--I for one treat a film much more favorably when it settles me in with some Sapphic smooching right up front.
But other than the gratuitous sex, I didn't like James Toback's new picture Black and White much, and you probably won't either. It's a wild mess of characters and situations that supposedly explores the white fascination with Hip Hop culture or something. I didn't learn anything from this film, and you probably won't either.
But what a crazy cast: Ben Stiller, Brooke Shields, Marla Maples, Elijah Wood (who gets to make out with Brooke during the end credits), Claudia Schiffer, Joe Pantoliano, Mike Tyson playing himself, some rappers and a basketball player, and thank God, Robert Downey, Jr., who supplies the only really entertaining scenes in the film as a gay man who hits on pretty much everyone he meets including, famously, Mike Tyson himself.
The main through-line concerns a college basketball star (Allan Houston) who's approached by a guy (Ben Stiller) asking him to throw a game for much cash. Turns out the guy has ulterior motives, yadda yadda yadda . . . whatever.
More interesting is what this film has to say about men, women, blacks and whites. Here's how it breaks down:
- White men: businessmen or cuckolds. Occasionally eat quail.
- Black men: rappers, basketball players or gangsters. Occasionally kill each other.
- White women: available to spread their legs for any black man in the room. And I mean, really. Every white female character in this picture is generously supplying pussy to one or more black men, with the exception of Brooke Shields, who hits on and gives her phone number to Mike Tyson.
- Black women: barely visible in the film, except in the form of naked asses. There is one very light-skinned black female character, although it's never clear who the hell she is.
This shit was retrograde in the 60's. And I mean the 18 60's. But, whatever. So the film has the sophistication of Mandingo. What of it? If the Hip Hop keeps playing, and the chicks keeping getting naked, could it be all bad? Well, no, not all bad, but its 98 minutes feels like about twice that. My reaction at the end was something along the line of, "Who are these people?"
An historical side note is that "Black and White" was also the working title of the film that later became known as Trading Places. Renting Trading Places is probably a better way to spend your Saturday night than seeing Black and White. You'll learn a lot more about race relations, and have a helluva lot more fun.
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