James Tobak's recent efforts have been mildly amusing at best. Two Girls and a Guy was a somewhat interesting look at a infidelity in a MTV Real World type atmosphere that eventually led nowhere. Black and White is a severe step down from Two Girls and a Guy. Staying in the same vein of taking an interesting topic and going nowhere with it, Black and White tries to do too much with too little. The idea of white kids emulating black culture is indeed a film worthy topic however Tobak feels the need to couple this with illegal sports gambling, police corruption, breaking into the rap business, homosexuality, and topped off with some gangsters thrown in for flavoring. The audience is thrown back and forth between intermingling sub plots while the film never develops a single character or plot line fully. The result is not a confusing film but a boring one. Like Kevin Smith's Dogma, Toback tries to pass off tired, obvious ideas as new and inventive thoughts on his subject matter. Even this would not have been to big a flaw if he had just followed through, however nothing is resolved. It is truly unfortunate that another interesting topic has been wasted in yet another mediocre film. Even when Toback tries to shock the audience with explicit sex scenes and with ridiculous, meaningless characters like Mike Tyson, Brooke Shields, and Robert Downey Jr, they just magnify the eventual tiresome result.
Review of Black & White
