Self-important, over-dramatic, uninspired.

There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

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

A 15-year-old girl in a black gang in Brussels must choose between loyalty and love when she falls for a Moroccan boy from a rival gang. The city of Brussels, plagued by high rates of youth unemployment, is home to nearly forty street gangs, and the number of young people drawn into the city's gang culture increases each year. It's in this criminal milieu that directing duo Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah set Black, a pulse-pounding contemporary take on a Shakespearean tragedy. Worlds collide when Mavela (Martha Canga Antonio), a teenage girl with ties to Brussels' Black Bronx gang, meets Marwan (Aboubakr Bensaihi), a member of a rival Moroccan gang, at a police station. Keenly aware of the consequences of getting involved with someone from another gang, they at first resist their attraction to one another, but they can only resist for so long.

Adil El Arbi seems hell-bent on putting migrants into bad daylight, or one would hope...because if this was a factual portrayal of these people we would be right to want them gone as soon as possible. As far as the story goes Adil just took the Romeo & Juliet template and changed some characters names, ethnicities and locations and voila, the script almost wrote itself. Really, this drains the film of almost any surprises coz we all know how that story went. That's just being lazy Adil... As a plus, I do have to say the movie is well shot. The camera-work and cinematography is pretty good. The music as you might have guessed is horrible, atrocious rap music, that's what the gangsta boys listen to innit. But we all know that this is the lowest form of music after Flemish Butcher songs right? So turn the sound off or watch with earplugs. And now for the biggest problem of the whole movie: the characters. These are the biggest bunch of violent, stealing, raping a-holes you would never want to associate with, live in the neighborhood off or even encounter in your lifetime. Normally you as a watcher should be able to sympathize with or at least root for the protagonists but this film makes that very difficult. The black girl is about the only one you can feel for but the rest of these mothers could not die fast enough for me. Just as in 'IMAGE' these migrant characters have nothing but contempt for each other (Blacks vs Moroccans) but most of all for the working class Flemish people. We seems to be the bottom of the barrel for them. That nukes all hope that integrating these people in our society will ever have a chance, or that is what this film is shouting to us in capital letters. Adding insult to injury: this film is financed partially by the VAF, but the only Flemish words spoken in this flick are curse words like 'klootzak', 'makkak', 'hoer', etc...money well spent VAF... So if you want to get royally p*ssed off watch this movie, if you want a couple of hours of solid entertainment watch Deadpool.

'Yes, I read books by Shakespeare', says a young gang member jokingly when he is interrogated by the police. Without doubt, this scene in 'Black' is meant as a little innuendo. The film is the latest cinematographic adaptation of Shakespeare's play 'Romeo and Juliet'.'Black' is set in Brussels, where territories are divided between Moroccan street gangs and rival gangs of black Africans. When Moroccan teenager Marwan is waiting in the police station after having been arrested for theft, he meets the pretty African girl Mavela, who is caught for the same reason. They exchange telephone numbers, and start an affair. Because they are members of different gangs, this is enough reason for an exchange of violent attacks by the gangs. Several girls are gang raped or forced to participate in holdups, the boys organize gang fights.The film is very fast-paced and dynamic, capturing the inner city gang life with dark, sinister images and impressive establishing shots, making Brussels look like an urban jungle not much different from the Bronx or Compton.But beneath this succession of beautiful shots, there is not much substance. The screenplay doesn't contain much suspense because everyone knows the Romeo and Juliet storyline. The dialogue consists mostly of four letter words. The characters are mostly one-dimensional. All white cops are sadistic racists, all black men are heartless macho's, all girls are sexy and submissive. The film makers miss the opportunity to develop interesting characters, like Mina, a policewoman of Moroccan descent. We never learn how she copes with being hated by members of her own ethnic group.In view of the Paris attacks of November 13th, the film has an interesting extra dimension. The Moroccan street gang is named '1080', which is the zip code for Molenbeek, the quarter in Brussels where the atrocities were being prepared and planned. You can't help but think that Marwan could just as well have been one of the attackers.Another interesting thing are the subtle references to Belgian linguistic squabbles. From time to time, Marwan and Mavela switch from French to Dutch, but purely in a mocking way. They hate the Flemish policemen who address them in Dutch, and when Marwan tells his imprisoned brother that he wants to start a legitimate garage business, he is accused of being 'Flemish'. Knowing that both directors are from Flanders, this is a nice pun.

-Black and Belgian action, drama film directed by Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah and set in the Brussels gang formation environment -Stars: . Martha Canga Antonio---Aboubakr Bensaihi---Sannao Bourrasse………-It is a pleasant picture to view leaving you in tension for the entire film, a film with a story in which a boy and a girl of rival gangs find each other and fall in love, their love is not possible by the opposing part of each a gang. The end and then afterwards considered this movie story has something of the love story Romeo & Juillie -Ith shows a hard reality of gangs which is also created by a prevailing poverty and less opportunity in society. –-The film is widely welcomed.