An absolute waste of money

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

a film so unique, intoxicating and bizarre that it not only demands another viewing, but is also forgivable as a satirical comedy where the jokes eventually take the back seat.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

This is a powerful film, the acting is natural and the story gets to the point. We see a young black man who struggles with his own cultural identity while attending an all-white university, he's on the receiving end of racism from both white and black people, we see it affect him greatly even after he graduates.It's a sad story, the entire movie shows the emotional destruction of the young man. We see him let his negative experiences get the better of him when he becomes the very thing that he has tried not to be, he becomes a thug in the end which leads to tragedy. The title is not a very good title because when you watch this movie from start to finish - you see that it isn't a case of "murder without motive", it's more like "self-defense" as another reviewer mentioned. I guess the title means that the murder was not planned.If racial topics affect you deeply, then you should avoid this movie.

You want a motive? The jury had no trouble finding one: Edmund Perry and his brother Jonah had attempted to mug a policeman, who reacted, quite reasonably, by shooting him. It was simply their bad luck that their intended victim turned out to be an armed plain-clothes policeman rather than what they assumed was just another unarmed white guy.Nor was this just the "official story," as implied in early accounts by the New York Post and Village Voice, both of which played up the fact that Perry had just graduated from a prestigious prep school, and suggested that latent racism on the part of the detective was the actual cause of the tragedy.Jonah himself confessed to two neighbors that they had been trying to rob someone when Edmund was shot. In fact, 23 witnesses all confirmed the officer's version of the events. He was cleared of the shooting, and the media quickly dropped the subject.Not so, apparently, the racial grievance industry, for whom propaganda like this execrable film is a major product. Never mind the facts; just make sure the minority is shown as the victim.Edmund Perry had already been accepted to attend Stanford on a full scholarship. It is unfortunate the consequences of choices HE made prevented what might have been a successful and fulfilling life. But sometimes, justice really IS blind.

The title of this movie, if based on real events, should be: Self Defense While Being Mugged.How can you possibly say there was no motive, when the evidence clearly showed Officer Van Hooten was MUGGED by Edmund Perry, who was shot in self defense.This IMDb Summary of the plot is the most laughable: "The Edmund Perry Story (TV) Edmund Perry appears to have things all going his way when he graduates from Phillips Exeter Academy with a scholarship to Stanford U. when an unfortunate meeting with a police officer ends his life."That "unfortunate meeting with a police officer" was Perry Mugging the police officer! Get the facts.

(Some Spoilers) On the evening of June 12, 1985 17 year old Edmund Perry and his brother Jonah, Curtis McClarin & Guy Killum, were out playing night basketball when all of a sudden their lives were turned upside down. In Emdund's case it in fact ended! It was then that Edmund ended up with three bullets in his gut when he and Jonah pounced upon undercover NYPD officer Lee Van Hotton, Angelo Tiffe, for reasons known only to themselves which, in the two having no previous criminal records, practically excluded the two trying to rob or mug him.The film then goes back some four years when Edmund was 13 and living in the Harlem ghetto and the obstacles that he had to overcome for him to get out of it. It was Edmund's scholastic record that had his teacher Mr. Tolliver, Georg Standord Brown, have him be put in a special class for gifted students that Edmund excelled in. In no time at all Edmund or Eddie was accepted in the prestigious New Hampshire Exeter Academy with him being one of the few blacks to be accepted there.You would think that things were to really improve for Eddie but as we soon saw they didn't. Eddie feeling very uncomputable surrounded by rich white students had trouble adjusting to the schools lifestyle. Even though he did good in his classes he was a total failure in his social life in Exeter always having a chip on his shoulder in not just being black but being from Harlem. Eddie did in fact make some friends at the exclusive and almost lily white prep school in Sean Putnam, Chris Daniel Barnes, and pretty Allison Connors, Carla Gugino, but his inferiority complex of being black in a white world or school didn't help Eddie in evolving any real friendship with them. In fact if was Allison who tried to open Eddie up by going out of her way to be friendly with him but the fact that her parents, if she even told them, would have disowned her if they found out about her friendship with Eddie had his paranoia as being black intensify to the point that he walked out on Allison without as much as saying goodbye to her. It was at graduation day at Exeter Academy that both Allison and Sean patched up their past differences with Eddie with him slated to go, on a full scholarship, to Sanford University in the fall and also getting a summer job on Wall Street. within two weeks all that together with Eddie Perry was dead on arrival at a local Harlem hospital emergency ward!What in fact drove Eddie Perry, who had the world at his feet, to do such a stupid thing that lead to his untimely death? As we later find out Eddie fit the description of that famous saying in "That you can take the man out of the ghetto but not the ghetto out of the man". At Exeter Eddie was at times a bit violent when provoked, mostly with words not actions, about his blackness by being quick with his fists but tried, with some success, to keep his hurt feelings under raps. It was when Eddie was back on his home turf in Harlem New York that the feelings that he suppressed so successfully at Exeter came out in the open. Officer Van Hotton, as the evidence showed, in no way incited Eddie as well as Jason, who in fact was later found innocent, to attack him to the point that he ended up hospitalized with a brain concussion! It in fact was what Eddie thought, in him and Jason planning to mug him, what Van Hotton thought not did to him that set the young man off! And with that Eddie Perry not only had himself killed but also all the hopes and dreams that he his family and friends had for him as well.