Zebrahead

The performances in the film are terrific. From Mike Rappaport to new-comer N'Bushe Wright, this little sleeper hit is sure to appeal to all genders, races, ages, etc. The message in the movie is the most important part of all. I wish I could see some more of Ray Sharkey's work, he is most impressive.

'Zebrahead' is an excellent, little known movie that manages to realistically portray racial issues in a contemporary teen movie without being saccharine or too preachy. Michael Rapaport, best known for playing supporting roles of losers in movies like 'True Romance', 'Cop Land' and 'Kiss Of Death', is given a strong leading role here and does very well with it. Surprisingly it was his movie debut and he rarely been given a part as good as this since. N'Bushe Wright, best known for 'Blade', is also excellent as his love interest Nikki, and the late Ray Sharkey ('Who'll Stop The Rain?') is first rate as his womanizing father. The rest of the supporting cast, mostly all young and unknown, are all very good, and the strange cameo by Kevin Corrigan ('Bandwagon', 'Buffalo '66') is unexplained but fascinating. Writer/director Anthony Drazan went on to make the equally overlooked 'Imaginary Crimes' and 'Hurlyburly'. All three movies deserve a lot more attention.

Film Critic AS a primer on race relations, what makes Zebrahead unique, and uniquely fascinating, is its point-of-view. The film begins with an assumption largely ignored in the works of Spike Lee or John Singleton - a belief that young white Americans are being heavily influenced by urban black culture, by the music and the language and the dress, by the mania of Arsenio Hall and the magic of Michael Jordan. So the script takes an admittedly extreme example of that influence - a white teen-ager reared in the predominantly black environs of Detroit - and examines the implications. Can cultural conditioning yield tolerance and empathy as readily as it generates prejudice and hate? The question itself is hopeful, and the movie delivers a complex answer with subtlety and style. Making his feature debut, writer-director Anthony Drazan has done his homework well - he too is the product of a "culturally mixed" background, and a man with an obvious zest for research. Shooting over 60 hours of video footage in New York City high schools, Drazan used that raw material as the basis for his fictional screenplay, changing the setting to the urban fringes of the Motor City and finding his alter ego in the youthful character of Zack (Michael Rapaport), a Jewish kid who, by sheer dint of exposure, is "more on the home-boy side than the white-boy side." The result is a vibrant picture that, from the rough dialogue to the hip-hop soundtrack, from the electronic "hall-monitors" to the washroom crackheads, resonates with the ring of truth. Certainly, for Zack, his "home-boy" side is not an assumed pose but a nurtured fact - he naturally loves the music that flows around him; his best friend is black because so are many of his classmates; ditto for Nikki (N'Bushe Wright), the new girl in town, the one with the sassy manner and the sweet smile. When Zack and Nikki go out on a Saturday night, it feels natural, inevitable. Of course, that single date becomes the pebble tossed in the pond, and the rest of the film traces the tragic ripples.

The revealed patterns are intriguing. The fortysomethings, the teen- agers' parents and teachers, are wholly incapable of viewing the relationship through anything but a racial lens. Some are more laissez faire than others - Zack's philandering dad (Ray Sharkey) seems to have transcended bigotry by abandoning any emotion - but all are fearful, pessimistic. The same is largely true of the kids' peers, yet there are a few telling exceptions - young adults who, as a way of life, not as a matter of principle, have genuinely broken through the colour barrier. It may be sentimental to argue, as the film does, that hope rests with the young. But it's not sentimental to show exactly how and why. Despite some small flaws (a few too many plot complications and a recurring visual image that seems tacked on), that's Drazan's real triumph here - within the turmoil and the tragedy he explores, there emerges a glint of hope that doesn't smack of wishful thinking.

And hope breeds hope. One wants to believe that, by extension, the glint can become a beacon, and that a racially mixed high-school can double as an educational microcosm - a troubled hotspot that grows the seeds of a solution from within the very problems it creates. Yes, one dearly wants to believe, and Zebrahead gives us a reason. Benjamin Miller, Filmbay Editor.

I love this movie. Really, really love it. I went to a school like this with kids like these. I went home to a house like that. I was in the cafeteria the day a racially-charged situation almost went to critical mass, and I was part of a group discussion the following week, in which nothing was resolved.

Which is what I like most about this movie. It doesn't end with everyone singing. Or dancing, or marching towards the camera, or anything like that. The goomba and the Spike Lee guy duke it out while the Asian girl despairs (as I did), and the white guy and black girl embrace each other hopelessly. That is life. Some differences will never be resolved, and the best you can hope for is that *some* people will reach each other. I was praying all along that this would not have some pat ending that could never have happened at my school, and I was rewarded. There are no resolutions, just moments.

Just watched it last night. Had a real feel to it. It concentrated more on the day to day lives of these kids. It wasn't just about blowing guys away or drug use or dealing on the street corner. The movie was very low key but had its good up tempo parts also. Very realistic. Had no idea that Oliver Stone did this movie. A very underrated film. I also felt that more information on Rapaport's character's mother could have been shared. To go even deeper, more on why Nikki moved to Detroit would have been a plus. Those are minor suggestions though. Still a movie to see if you haven't. I have not seen "Save the Last Dance" so I can't compare. I did like it better than "Jungle Fever".