Strong and Moving!

Perfectly adorable

not as good as all the hype

Memorable, crazy movie

For a film about young people it developed slowly even tortuously. It had a number of strands • Privileged white kids slumming it ,sometime dangerously • People starting out with the wrong people for the wrong reasons • People ending up with the right people for the right reasons • The violent world of hip hop capitalism • Manipulative revenge • Parental /child relationships Ad that to great performances from ;• Robert Downey Jr. • Joe Pantoliano • Brooke Shields • Ben StillerGreat cameo from Mike TysonPlenty of rappers being themselves ( rakweon and method man )Claudia Schiffer she actually can actMany younger actors William Lee Scott, Bijou Phillips, Elijah Wood, Eddie Kaye Thomas, Gaby HoffmannThis will be a classic like juice

A group of white kids become the focus of a pair of documentary film makers looking at the phenomenon of the `wigger' - white kids adopting the mannerisms and culture of the black, hip-hop community. Meanwhile gangsters-come-rappers Rich Bower and Cigar have to face up to the opening of a white club in their neighbourhood. Also college basketball player Dean is set up for throwing a game and forced to provide evidence to the cops on Bower.If my plot summary sounds like it's confused or unclear, there's a good reason for that; it's because the film itself is very much spinning all over the place with a whole lot of strands. It is apparent that the film is trying to make a bigger point about culture, identity and race relations in the US but the frustrating thing is that it just doesn't manage to do it. It has plenty of interest moments and plenty of interesting characters that say a lot, but it never manages to come together in anything that is either thought provoking or satisfying.I had hoped that the film would pull all it's threads together to deliver a point but it didn't. The stories themselves are quite interesting on the whole, but it is evident that this is not what the film was after. Hence we don't get a conclusion, we get an unclear `6 months later' finale that even just plays over the end credits - that's how little the stories actually meant. OK, so that leaves us with the commentary concept of this film - that it's not just about the actions, it's about the wider issues. If that is the case, the film still flounders a bit because it was not clear to me what point it was trying to make beyond the `white kids like black culture', `black people don't like white people stealing their culture' etc etc stuff that shouldn't have taken 100 minutes to make!Despite these comments, I did enjoy watching the film. The semi-improvised nature of the film makes for an enjoyable experience and for scenes with flowing, quite natural dialogue. The downside of that is that many of the cast mistake mumbling in ebonics for interesting dialogue. The cast is still impressive despite the fact that many of them have nothing really to do. The main players don't impress that much - Downey and Shields are pretty poor, mainly because their characters are pointless. The various white kids just slum it in wigger roles that would be funny if they weren't so accurate. The cameos and roles for rappers are actually quite good - but most of them are just playing the gangster roles that they play everyday in their music. Raekwon and Power from Wu Tang were both pretty good but he film benefits mostly from the sheer number of faces rather than the quality. Houston, Tyson, Pantoliano, Stiller, Method Man, Ratner and various other rappers all add interest.Overall this film is entertaining in it's freewheeling manner but it is hard to ignore the fact that it doesn't achieve anything. The stories don't really go anywhere and the points about race and cultural identity get muddled and lost in the mix. It has potential and it is definitely interesting, but it is badly flawed.

On one side (black), a group of black gangsters that spend time doping, having intercourses with white rich girls and threatening the neighborhood, trying to become rappers. On the other side (white), a group of ridiculous white rich boys and girls that spend time doping, having intercourses with black men, having classes with a gay blonde colored hair teacher or fighting with their own families. A filmmaker and her ridiculous gay husband interested in filming these two groups. Obs.: poor Robert Downey Jr., is this a condition for his parole, or is he doing drugs again? An outstanding actor like him making again this gay role! At least, `One Night Stand' is a great movie. Last, but no less ridiculous, a corrupt white cop and … Mike Tyson, as a `guest star', giving lessons of life behavior. Put all of these characters blended together with a lot of stereotypes and we will have a too much verbal movie with an empty message in the end. Screenwriter and director James Toback should rent some Spike Lee movies and try to learn how to make a good movie about the Afro-Americans and their communities. What was his intention? A drama, comedy, or what? To complete this mess, he could have finished this flick with a clip of Hair's song `Black Boys, White Boys'. My vote is four.

I bought this title because I felt familiar with its name and I saw a trailer on some other dvd (baby boy if i remember well). Truly, I expected more of this - like some kind of a celebration of diversity, coexistence, relationships, partnership and romance. But this wasn't really present there, not in a straight, healthy way. It looked to me like it's more celebration of an unjustice and even sickness in some moments. I didn't like how an evil survived everything. What's the message of this? Well enough of complaing, this movie was still good to the point, but I really mean it when I'm saying I expected more from this.