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 .