Black and White (1999)

39% of critics liked it
(79 reviews)
32% of users liked it
(5,176 ratings)

The inner workings of the New York hip-hop scene, and the fascination of white observers with rap music and hip-hop culture, set the stage for this drama written and directed by James Toback. Rich Bower (Power) is a mover and shaker in the world of rap music (he's involved with a number of other… More The inner workings of the New York hip-hop scene, and the fascination of white observers with rap music and hip-hop culture, set the stage for this drama written and directed by James Toback. Rich Bower (Power) is a mover and shaker in the world of rap music (he's involved with a number of other licit and illicit business ventures as well), and his apartment is a favored meeting place for musicians, hangers-on, and hipsters who want to seem cool, including a clique of white kids who want to be on the inside of whey they consider the coolest scene of the day. Sam (Brooke Shields), a filmmaker, is making a documentary about Rich and his circle, with the help of her husband Terry (Robert Downey Jr.), a closeted homosexual who doesn't feel at home in this milieu. Dean (Allan Houston) is a talented college basketball player and Rich's friend since childhood who is offered a deal by a bookmaker, Mark (Ben Stiller) to throw a few games for a price. Dean takes the money against his better judgment, and he soon realizes how much of a mistake he made when Mark turns out to be a cop hoping to dig up dirt on Rich. Rich in turn discovers that Dean might be forced to tell what he knows to stay out of jail, and he decides that Dean has to be killed; however, rather than murder his friend himself, Rich asks one of the white kids who hangs out with him, who seems especially eager to prove himself, to do it for him. The kid, however, is actually the son of the District Attorney. Also contributing to Black and White's supporting cast are controversial boxing legend Mike Tyson, musician Bijou Phillips, Wu Tang Clan rapper Raekwon, model Claudia Schiffer, and Donald Trump's former spouse Marla Maples. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

Rating, Runtime: R, 1 hr. 38 min.
Directed By: James Toback
Genres: Musical & Performing Arts, Drama

In Theaters: Jun 7, 2002 Wide
On DVD: Sep 26, 2000
Studio: Palm Pictures

Critic Reviews

Todd McCarthy, Variety
As lively and amusing as the film is in some ways, it does set up expectations at the outset that are never really delivered upon.
Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle
It doesn't try to spell out all aspects of the issue or arrive at any particular point. Toback presents specific characters dealing with specific problems and, through their stories, somehow manages to take the temperature of the times.
Peter Travers, Rolling Stone
This lively mess proves that when Toback loses his head, he does it with style.
Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times
Like James Toback himself, his new film is in your face, overflowing with ideas, outrageous in its connections, maddening, illogical and fascinating.
Steve Murray, Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Black and White is defeated by its structural shapelessness, and a down-with-it attitude that glosses over the script's lack of any real analysis of hip-hop's cultural influence.
Jay Carr, Boston Globe
Unfortunately, it veers away from the freshness and urgency of its across-the-board culture clashes and into a series of increasingly contrived melodramatic dead ends that play like outtakes from a TV cop show.
Philip Martin, Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
... Black and White is sort of a mess, but it's the kind of worthy, ambitious mess that a director like Godard might make.
Bob Grimm, Sacramento News & Review
A daring film that has some sloppy flaws but is far better than Toback's previous effort, the dismal Two Girls and a Guy.
, Time Out
It looks like a mess -- if one stuffed with incident, issues and intrigue.
Jeffrey M. Anderson, Combustible Celluloid
James Toback's Black and White is meant to be an incendiary movie, but it's really only just OK.
Robin Clifford, Reeling Reviews
The best thing I have seen come from director Toback.
Matthew Turner, ViewLondon
Mostly watchable and well-acted, but neither as engaging nor as exciting as it needs to be.
Ben Falk, BBC
While Toback certainly makes a game effort to study the infiltration of hip-hop into the mainstream, his inability to choose what ground to cover ultimately results in an episodic hotch-potch.
Jeanne Aufmuth, Palo Alto Weekly
Short bursts of captivating information are strung together in a series of quick-cutting vignettes, alternately hitting their mark and falling disastrously flat.
Chris Gore, Film Threat
The unfocused story travels through so many subplots that none of the individual stories are ever explored fully enough to pay off.
James Sanford, Kalamazoo Gazette
Perhaps you remember "The Pick-Up Artist," the movie that single-handedly killed Molly Ringwald's career? That was another Toback production. "Black and White," for all its arty pretensions and supposed shock value, doesn't break his losing streak.

Read all 16 critic reviews

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Featured Audience Ratings

Dean M

Just a fine drama like documentary tale of race, class, and sexual boundaries blur in this voyeuristic tour of modern Manhattan in which privileged white kids reinvent themselves as gangstas, and African-American thugs morph into recording artists.
Dean !

A film that tries to cast Mike Tyson as an intellectual is never going to be that good. Odd film that shows how some white kids think it's cool to act gangster. Also shows how a promising basketball player gets caught up in the illegal activities of his friends.
Daniel P

I'm sure I'd reviewed this film on Flixster but apparently not. Anyway, Black & White is a pretty unmemorable comment on race and culture, but there is good improvising from a typically excellent Robert Downey Jr. Director James Toback is here… More
I'm sure I'd reviewed this film on Flixster but apparently not. Anyway, Black & White is a pretty unmemorable comment on race and culture, but there is good improvising from a typically excellent Robert Downey Jr. Director James Toback is here evidentially trying to do a "Robert Altman" by splicing interweaving story lines, but to be honest the whole thing is pretty messy and actually quite contrived.