Higher Learning

Hard to believe the extremes of the reviews of this film. It's either genius or crap. I found it somewhere in between, and I have to say I enjoyed it, owing mostly to Omar Epps. I believe he's one of the best actors in America right now, and his performance in this movie really made it watchable as far as I'm concerned. Many of the characters were not developed well, and were two-dimensional at best. Rappaport's character, and in fact all the white supremacists, were mere cut-outs and actually painful to watch. I didn't get the good guy/bad guy (name your race -- I think it depends on who's reviewing) theme at all. I think Epps was the protagonist and naturally he was shown in a better light than most of the other characters, black or white. There was some intelligent dialog and some inane dialog. However, it was overall an interesting film and I'm glad I saw it. Not perfect by any means, and with its share of clichés, but a good film nonetheless.

I wish Singleton would keep his obvious bias racially feelings out of his movies and just make a movie that's real, instead of this laughable, trite garbage.

Example: In the movie 'Boyz In The Hood', Laurence Fishburne is giving a speech to his son and son's buddy and says "Why do you think there's a liquor store and gun store on every single corner in black neighborhoods? I'll tell you why. Because they want us to kill ourselvs." Yes, I can see how movies with black people suggesting evil white people are conspiring to kill all black people by "making them kill each other" will advance race relations.

As for Higher Learning, I think the title should have been shortened to 'High'. One must be very high to watch a movie like this and feel 'enlightened' by the end of the movie.

Let's see, basically all white males in this movie are either one of two things: Very bad or very weak. All black people are either cool, heroic, intelligent or victims.

Whites in this movie: The evil racist campus security, the evil white jock rapist, the weak white hippy who tries his hardest to understand Malik but Malik turns him down, the weak Jewish roommate who shits his pants like a little girl when Remmy pulls a gun on him, yet Malik plays it cool of course, and of course the oh so very evil and BAAAAD nazi skinheads! Oh yes, nazi skinheads are just killing black people daily in college campuses and all over the country. And of course the skinheads are very weak and stupid like Remmy.

Blacks in the movie: Laurence Fishurne as a wise professor, the strong black woman "I don't take no buuuulllshit" roommate, Ice Cube's cool street smart character, Malik's "struggle" to find himself in an evil white man's world, Tyra Bank's intelligent character who becomes a victim, Busta' Rhymes beating up two skinheads at one time etc etc.

What a bunch of laughable and ridiculous clichés. Singleton definitely has a chip on his shoulder when it comes to white people. This movie was every bit as racist as any pro nazi skinhead documentary. Worst movie ever made.

I must have been watching a different movie to most of the people adding comments. I didn't see it as a film portraying African Americans as good and whites as bad but as a film in which all the factions were shown to have good and bad sides. Even the guy who becomes the Nazi skinhead was portrayed sympathetically in as much as he is clearly out of his depth in a social situation and becomes a recruit because only the skinheads will accept him when no-one else will. Overall, the African Americans come out as the most sympathetic but not by much.

I agree there are some fairly silly stereotypes, especially Fishburne's character, but they work in the context of the movie. Most refreshing was the fact that an American college is portrayed as a place with real issues like racism and date rape and drunken behaviour. It's refreshing because colleges are usually shown as places where nice middle-class kids never have any problem bigger than being dumped by their boyfriends before everything is resolved in the last reel.

An overly maligned movie. Not perfect but better than a million other college movies. Loved the ending too.

"The opposing groups are just too clearly defined and what we are left with is a comic strip or a caricature, even down to the pipe smoking professor".They even did a bad job on their stereotyping. Laurance Fishburn's accent sounded scottish when you just really anticipate an english accent to go with that pipe.

In one scene where the two parties have their first confrontation I just kept waiting for them to start laughing and it turn into a comedy. I had the hardest time believing these people were serious. They expect you to believe this is *really* how people live but you just dont see it cause you're blind.

I found this film to be heavily laden with stereotypes - everything from the depiction of fraternity members being sexist, skirt-chasing rapists, to the african-american male doing the 'hood walk, to the white male hick who just has to end up becoming a neo-Nazi. The ending was uncalled for and decidedly cheesy. Makes you wonder if the writers/director ever went to college, and if so which ones, cause the one I went to was not nearly as exciting. I realize that Mr. Singleton was attempting to deal with multiple issues in a limited timespan, which accounts for the film having very little by way of realism, but that doesn't excuse many of the situations being as over the top as they were, nor does it warrant such heavy usage of stereotypes.

And the near lack of non-black and non-white (I don't count Jewish people as not being white) characters only served to lessen my respect for this piece of work. I am South Asian myself (that's the Indian subcontinent for those who feel geographically challenged) and, in general, find our lack of presence in any mainstream production about higher education just a little bit annoying, especially given the large numbers of such people on any college campus. And by presence, I don't mean "boy at fountain" or "girl in classroom" cardboard characters. I mean real, live people with relevant parts.

The cinematography, on the other hand, was great. His crowd scenes in particular were shot beautifully.

After being blown away by Boyz n' the 'hood, I was very disappointed by Higher Learning. I give it a 4 out of 10.