Overrated and overhyped

Excellent, a Must See

Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

Blistering performances.

Bamboozled is an incredibly underrated film. It is skillfully directed and performed. The actors are top notch and this movie features some of their absolute best work. Damon Wayans and Tommy Davidson are especially phenomenal; this film showcases some of their deepest and most poignant acting. Despite being mainly a tapper/hoofer and new to acting, Savion Glover brings in the fire and gives a stellar performance. This movie is far ahead if its time and still presents a clear representation of race relations and exploitation especially in entertainment and the workplace, even still today. This film is the best form of satire I've ever seen. There is always something new to discover every time I see it and it never gets old.

I went through equal parts of liking and disliking this movie. Enough so that I feel the need to write it out here.First the good: The message of this movie is right on. It really makes you think about portrayals of blacks in popular culture not only in the past, but in the present. How different is the dichotomy between the straight laced Tommy Lee Jones and the "hip/cool" Will Smith in a movie like Men in Black from that between the "massa" ("yes sa") and the black house servant in movies of old? So the movie is good in terms of making you think about these things. All of the scenes showing the black face performances on the "Man-Tan Show" and the montage of blacks in entertainment at the end of the movie are quite poignant, and frankly left me speechless and fixated on the television screen.The bad: The acting and script left a lot to be desired. Okay, to be fair, Damon Wayans left a lot to be desired. Has a good performance EVER come out of a Wayans brother? I understand he was trying to perform a "white" black man, but every word out of his mouth felt so forced that it was painful to listen to. Other than Wayans the acting, while not superb, wasn't terrible. The script however had a lot of problems. It felt like it was forced along too much, being made to lead to Mr. Lee's agenda rather than unfold naturally as a story. This made it feel rushed at times and completely ludicrous at others.Overall, if you want to be made to think about race in America and in entertainment, this is a good movie to pick up. However, you will have to sit through some painful acting and a lackluster script, so be prepared.

TV writer Pierre Delacroix (Damon Wayans) is tired of having his TV concepts rejected by the studio. Accused by his ultra-"hip" white boss Dunwitty (Michael Rappaport) of not being "black" enough, an enraged Pierre comes up with an outlandish idea: a modern-day minstrel show, complete with black-face, musical revue numbers, racial epithets, and the most ridiculous stereotypes imaginable. He enlists the aide of his reluctant secretary Sloane (Jada Pinkett Smith) and two street dancers Manray and Womack (Savion Glover and Tommy Davidson) desperate for a buck. Pierre is flabbergasted when the network accepts the show, and then becomes a pop culture phenomenon. But not everyone enjoys the racial epithets the show provides, and the Maumaus, a group of wannabe gangstas/rappers, decide to take matters into their own hands - with tragic results.Spike Lee's "Bamboozled" is certainly an ambitious film. It is an unremittingly vicious satire of the portrayal of blacks in popular media, a topic all too open to attack from Lee's inflammatory eye. However, having set up a potentially great and scathing satire, Bamboozled ultimately fails by being just too broad and over-the-top in its target.Lee is certainly right in attacking media portrayal of African-Americans. And for the early sections, it works. The most effective is the portrayal of pop culture - namely gangsta rap and hip-hop. The Maumaus are ridiculous posers who don't even notice that one of their number is white. The TV ads for Blow Cola and Timmi Hiln!gger showcase the artificiality and toxic nature of gangsta culture. Women are hos, bitches, and sluts; the men are cool because they do drugs and kill people. Lee's double-edged sword goes after the white media (embodied by the embarrassingly patronizing boss Dunwitty) for perpetuating such images, but also the blacks who embrace it. Very few societal targets, regardless of race or position, escape Lee's critical eye. The film's use of clips from minstrel shows of the past, as well as cartoons and other caricature portrayals, as well as the commentary of Sloane, to make the point reverberate. All of this is brilliantly done, and the witty dialog and character interactions of the first half indicate that Lee has winner on his hands.But the film ultimately fails due to the methods it employs. Seriously... is there a sentient human being alive who thinks that there would be a TV audience for a MINSTREL SHOW? Black face is such an inherently, blatantly offensive concept that it's impossible to take it seriously. For lack of a better word, it's overkill. And by showing it again and again, Lee rather overdoes (and undermines) his point. We get it; this show is racist and humiliating. Wouldn't Lee have better made his point by keeping the focus on the contemporary equivalent, or at least gone about it in a more subtle manner? Of course, "Bamboozled" is a satire, so hyperbole is expected. But, there are limits to this, particularly within the media of film. Be too outlandish and over-the-top, and the point is lost. Jonathan Swift's "A Modest Proposal" works because it is a written essay, where the venom beneath Swift's seemingly earnest tone is almost undetectable. In "Bamboozled", however, we see starkly outrageous images of minstrel shows about black-faced, watermelon-eating, chicken-stealing blacks (and the black-faced fans who love and emulate them). And that image in and of itself blots out the point Lee is trying to make with such images. We don't remember that the media is demeaning towards blacks; we remember the minstrel show.The movie is also damaged by its cop-out ending, which uses violence as an easy solution to the problems it has set up. One could argue that Lee was attempting to show the detrimental effects Delacroix's show had on society. Thanks, but I'm not buying that. Whatever justice that argument has is killed by the ham-fisted, rushed way the climax is executed.The acting is uniformly solid. Damon Wayans, an actor I usually dislike, makes Pierre an intriguing character. Pierre's descent into hell - ultimately embracing the stereotypes he presents through his work - is fascinating. Jada Pinkett-Smith gives a quietly effective performance as the film's conscience, although her actions at the end seem ridiculously out-of-character. Savion Glover and Tommy Davidson are both extremely likable as two characters who slowly realize what they're doing is wrong. Michael Rappaport's hopeless studio VP is hysterical, and provides some of the film's best moments.In short, "Bamboozled" is an extremely ambitious film that starts out great, then becomes so outlandish and over-the-top its point is obscured. Regardless, one should note it is very much a point worth making.6/10

An obvious challenge to Spike Lee's Bamboozled starts with the opening scene of Pierre Delacroix's broad accent. Like an old VHS tape, there is something about the sound of Damon Wayans voice that hurts the ears and makes us wonder if Lee was intoxicated while Wayans was shooting his scenes. But as the film progressed, I realized the magnitude of the brutal, pompous accent. In this film, racial identity is at the forefront of its message while Lee successfully incorporates the theme of one's own identity as a human being. While we see blatant racism being practiced by our own black protagonist, we soon understand that this is all possible because he never really knows who he is as a result of society's attempt to tell him who he should be: a bumbling black man who can entertain white folk.Halfway through the film we find that Pierre is not really Pierre. His name is Peerless, the son of Junebug, a black comedian who tells his son to not sell out to Hollywood because they will change who he is in order to make money. Pierre's problem is, he has no grasp of a true identity, therefore he has had to create his own persona to please his white executives.On a more humorous note, Mos Def plays a black hip hop artist to refuses to be called by his "slave name" Julius Hopkins, and instead wants to be called Big Blak Afrika. Again the idea of black identity in a white society is explored.In the end, we realize, in some part, why there is an identity crisis among African Americans when we see the montage of racially charged cartoons, films, and TV shows which pigeon hole blacks into stereotypes. This scene more than any other scene in the film made me ashamed and saddened by America's tendency to entertain through exploitation. Lee readdresses the foundation of racism that has already been created in our society even though many have already forgotten these images.