White Man

I appreciate when a movie tries to break the conceptions of the audience. This shows that someone is trying to be smart and use the medium to express their own heartfelt views as well as entertain. Yet this movie has a serious problem: it tries to show a mirror world in which the roles of whites and blacks are reversed in order to show the injustice. Yet this movie doesn't have the sense to realize that when you use a stereotype in order to break it, you end up enforcing it. Travolta's character in this movie is not just your bog standard black man, it's representative of whites in the same class strata. Yes, there are white people who act just like he does in this movie. This is not behavior that is reserved solely for black people. And yet this is supposed to be an Alternate America?

Nonsense.

This movie is misinformed racewise. There are plenty of rich blacks and poor whites in this world. Turn it on Cops or any talk show and you'll see proof of the latter. To give us a morality play with the intent to shock us with things a lot of us in middle America see on a daily basis is lazy conception.

The movie fails on this level. Perhaps if it gave more thought to the classes instead of just using the race card (and actually looking more into their topic) it would be a good movie. But now, it's just a forgotten piece of tripe with a very limited and selectively cynical view of the world. And the world is lesser for it.

It is JUST a movie!!! geez... you all are giving this movie too much power. It is meant to ENTERTAIN. The movie's soul purpose was to illustrate many popular stereotypes. Any mature audience would recognize that it was only meant to do this and NOT to properly represent either role for the sake of being politically correct. However, it is apparent that many of you find it offensive or brutal because you feel that "your race" was being misrepresented. Speaking as an African American female, I understood that this movie was ONLY meant to open my eyes to society's view of race roles of blacks and whites in America. Sure black people dont walk around with duck-tape on their jackets (as in the scene with the thugs at the restaurant) and little black girls do not have easy access to a revolver that they are permitted to use in the case of an emergency (as in the scene where Belafonte's character hid in a white person's home for safety) and LORD KNOWS a white man will NEVER bring a black girl home to meet his family. *haha* --kiddin'. ("disturbing" comment, huh?)

Well anyways, I think the movie was good for rousing up these feelings of disturbance, however it lost me when the whole kidnapping took place. It became the focal point of the movie and confused many of its viewers. Other than that, the movie was ok. I give it a 8 on a scale from 1 to 10, only because I have never seen such a bold attempt to deal with race roles as this one. Therefore, I enjoyed the movie.

I didnt know anything about the movie when it was sent on Danish television, and to begin with I found it quite surprising; it made me think a lot. -A great way of describing the social problems in the USA. The only problem with the movie was that it lasted for more than half an hour; after that it was just a cliche of a movie..very predictable. Its obvious that the movie was produced basically because of the good concept. Then suddenly they had to write a script too, and they simply forgot to be original, resulting in a story which is lousy even compared to television.

I think the ending was sad. I felt sorry for Travolta, even his son. But I disagree with the comment about "whats the point" because it shows what I go through weekly. I mean, some of it is extreme, but true. And when Belafonte remarked, "well, most of them don't have father's" in response to his wife's comment about the white kids discipline, it was... I'm at a lost for words. I'm watching it again tonight, and I think every white man needs to see the movie, and every black man. It was a trip seeing the roles flipped. But the movie is truly, "a trip". I mean, when Belafonte talks about the "socially crippled, genetically inferior" whites, its a trip, just hearing that. I study psychology, and all these theories are pervasive, and they relate to science by the genetic concepts of the 20th century, i mean, eugenics and it is really wild. Anyway, this is a must see movie. You must see it. I'm mad I didn't know it existed for the last ten years.

I expected good things from this film as I tend to admire directors and screenwriters who take a visually arresting premise and manipulate it in order to prompt self reflection in the audience (The Elephant Man for example). In addition, I am a big fan of Travolta and the role seemed an artistically sound one for him to undertake. Initially, the widespread symbolism is interesting and inventive, yet becomes overbearing relatively quickly, and to me it seemed that the director underestimated his audience's perception and continually rammed home his point with the subtlety of Dolph Lundgren.

The film ultimately left me frustrated because I thought the idea was a good one but the story simply wasn't multi-faceted enough to be engaging. Aside from the characters played by Travolta and Belafonte, most of the supporting cast was very underwritten, particularly the families of both men. However, the performances were very good, and I thought Belafonte conveyed the defeatism and inherent arrogance of his role particularly well.

Overall though, I thought this was pseudo-art: it masqueraded as a deep and meaningful examination of the social relevance of race, but ended up as a very simplistic story disguised by delusions of self worth.

5/10