Toback was mentioned by Football great Jim Brown in his book "Out of Bounds" as a Harvard educated man who could seduce any woman anywhere, the consummate 'Pick-up artist' as it were. Yet he seems to have a weird and quite complicated white man's complex about 'black sexual mystique.' Most of this movie is extremely interesting precisely because you can sense Toback's intense fascination with the aspects of Black Culture that have a magnetic pull for young whites and especially pretty young white females. In "Black and White" he investigates the unexplored and seemingly mysterious reasons why Hip-Hop culture is so popular among middle-class whites and the attraction that that sometimes criminal-underworld-and-gang-affiliated musical culture has for these kids who've grown up in sheltered surroundings. The documentary style acting communicates more truths in one scene that any 10 typical HOllywood movies. The realities of black/white relations are neither ignored nor trivialized nor made too much of a big deal out of like in Spike Lee's movies. Unfortunately the highly intelligent character played by Claudia Schiffer betraying her boyfriend who has put his complete trust in her, is completely implausible and ruins the film. As if this weren't enough there is the further absurdity of the upper middle class white kid agreeing to do a hit for his black gangster mentor, without giving the issue a single second thought. If it weren't for these two catastrophic implausibilities this would be a great film; as it is, it is flawed, ridiculous, and yet quite valuable, funny, and entertaining.
Review of Black & White
Black & White
(I) (1999)
A valuable film ruined by a couple of idiotic and completely implausible plot turns
11 January 2001