When it comes to the pseudo documentary, America has had its fill already. “This is Spinal Tap” was the best comical adaptation of the form and “The Blair Witch Project” was the most frightening.

“Black and White” just uses the form to get into a discussion of race relations and feels contrived. It is as if they were just looking for an excuse to make a movie.

“Black and White” is about rich, white kids that like to hang out in the hood. The pseudo-documentary is about a couple looking at the influence of hip-hop culture on white kids.

This film utilized one of the worst ideas ever put to film as well, allowing actors to improvise their own lines. A well-crafted film does not rely on its actors for realism. Granted, every once in a while some actor is going to say something in front of a camera that can and should make it into the final cut, but by and large, actors need to be saying what they are told to say, otherwise it does not look real, it just looks like actors trying to be real.

The average person, even one who is very concerned with looking and sounding cool, doesn’t spend that much time making sure that every word out of their mouths is gold. Even the him-hawing looks fake because they are trying to think of something to say that is in character.

“Black and White” attempts to look at the clash between black America and white America with a certain degree of honesty, but overall, it is too self-consciously hip to be really honest.

There are several story lines in this film and each one is more weak than the next.

One is about Rich Bower, a young black man trying to leave his criminal past behind to become a rap star. He has to deal with white people as businessmen for the first time in his life.

Another storyline involves Rich’s friend, Dean, a basketball player who is given a large sum of money to shave points off a basketball game. He is also dating a gorgeous grad student played by Claudia Schiffer.

A further element to the plot follows the documentary filmmakers, played by Robert Downey Jr. and Brooke Shields.

With all of these storylines floating around, you would think the audience would at least accidentally care about one or two of the characters, but sadly the film is not set up to let us get very close to anyone.

It is similar to “Slacker” in that it floats around from story to story as if we are flies on the wall. Being a fly on the wall is great if someone says something they would not normally say when you are standing right in front of them.

The movie attempts to look at a complex issue in a new way, but again, this is not a new way. It may be the first time someone has tried to look at race relations like this, but that doesn’t make the gritty realism any easier to watch.

Frankly, if they had settled on one or two of the plots and focused their efforts on getting some good dialogue and tight directing, we may have ended up with something edifying.

It just comes off like a really bad TV commercial with people on the street talking about how much they love the George Forman grill or something and you know you saw them in a dandruff shampoo commercial just last week.

There are way too many people in this movie. The director is obviously a fan of Robert Altman. You pack this many people into a movie that is supposed to blow the lid off of stereotypes and you know what you get? A movie that treats people like stereotypes. Ironic, isn’t it?

As an audience, we learn nothing. The only people who would want to see this movie are people who are interested in learning something they might not get in a really slick big budget flick. Why else would we see a movie that looks like a crappy fake documentary in the commercials?

Don’t see this movie unless you come across it in the 99 cent bin at your video store one day and you want to know what was so bad about it.

2 Star

Ratings based on a 5 Stars scale.