Crown Heights

Just rented the DVD and saw/heard the movie in 5.1 surround. Since I was at Crown Heights two weeks before and two weeks after the riot in 1991, I can vouch for some of the movie's authenticity. Despite any shortcomings the entirety of this production is so grand it is a highly meaningful and noble enterprise.

Howie Mandel plays a legitimate serious role (wow!). He captures joys and struggles in Crown Heights that occur in that locale even until this day. The relationship between the Minister and Rabbi Howie - and between the Black and Orthodox teenage boys - is in fact realistic

both in their frustrations, upsets and cooperative unification in behalf of common aims. The final dance scene says it all.

And what's so strange about that? Blacks and Jews have worked well together before, and with the energy in "Crown Heights," they will do so again. As the Rebbe proclaimed, "We are all part of one community under one G-d."

Jeremy Paul Kagan put an excellent TV movie together. Now let's see an extravaganza big screen version. How about it, Steven Spielberg and Jeremy Kagan?

Peace. Love. Mazel Tov! ~ Dr.Cliff

I got to see this movie on Showtime early one Sunday morning. For a Howie Mandell movie, I was expecting a few jokes and some physical comedy. What I got instead was a serious film dealing with race and tolerance. I was lost with the hip hop music because the early days of rap and hip hop (street style) music was more of a "flavor of the month" than a real genre of art.

Overall, a nice little film but this is far from anything great or worth watching over and over and over again. The acting is as good as its dialogue....still, the overall message was worth getting a the movie was worth watching once. I consider this one of Howie's serious films to remind the critics that he's Jewish and a good actor. For that reason, if it be true, I think the movie was a success.

Considering the subject matter, this could've been a powerful, moving drama. The film is adequate, and I didn't hate it in the least, but all in all it's no more than an above-average after-school special. The story is based on real events, but I'm sure the writer and director took many liberties in constructing this predictable plot. The friendship between the two main characters (a Jewish teen and a black teen) seems forced. I'm sure the two guys didn't become friends as easily as they did in the film. Trust me, I lived in an inner city most of my life. I don't imagine two people of such different backgrounds embracing each other so abruptly. There are several implausible scenes in the film, including one where the two guys go to a club. Once again, this one of those clubs that only exist in the movies--the volume of the music is low enough for the characters to understand each other clearly, there are only about 10 people in the club (hinting at the film's lack of budget to afford a decent number of extras), a guy utters the lines "Wanna dance?" and the girl immediately prances onto the dance floor with him, and the girl gives a guy her phone number within seconds. On the bright side, the actors are good all-around, including Howie Mandel (my main reason for picking up the DVD), who gives a subdued dramatic performance without making his character too serious. "Crown Heights" is a harmless, watchable film, but it didn't have the effect it should have had on me. Plus, the intercutting of real news footage and videotaped simulations of news reports kind of took me out of the film. At times the director doesn't seem to know whether he wants to make a documentary or docudrama.

Well-meaning but incredible, this film depicts the inter-racial killings and their aftermath in Crown Heights. All the acting is good, and Howie Mandel is especially a surprise. A few sad scenes, and a few funny ones. But the key to the entire plot, the friendship between a Jewish and a Black teenager, has no motivation and just seems pasted in place. ** ** ** ** **

To be fair, a good intentioned, but laughable and superficial effort to try to find common threads between Chasidim and Black street youth in Brooklyn. Portrayal of each group is unrealistic and simultaneously --and paradoxically-- grossly stereotypical. The depiction by the actors of the Jews was tailor made for an audience that knows nothing about Chasidic Jews; their portrayal was not, not believable. All the clichés are touched upon: Jews are exclusive; blacks are oversexed and violent. But don't worry because Rap Music is gonna save the day by uniting Jews with Black, teaching all to "increase the peace." Puh-leaze. Dialogue is strained and awkward. Storyline shallow and amateur, but again, topical and well intentioned. Honeslty, I cringed watching this filmed-in-one-week movie, but watched out of curiosity -- the way one watches an automobile accident. Painfully, someone thought enough of this to present it as a film. But there is one memorable moment: the protagonist black boy calls the protagonist Chasid, "Boychick" in friendship. By the way, shouldn't this movie have been done like ten years ago? -Jon