Plenty to Like, Plenty to Dislike

Don't Believe the Hype

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

Watching it is like watching the spectacle of a class clown at their best: you laugh at their jokes, instigate their defiance, and "ooooh" when they get in trouble.

BLACK AND WHITE is a not-bad suspense thriller with a nice starring role for Gina Gershon, an actress I find extremely underrated in cinema. She gives an edgy performance as a dedicated cop who may or may not be performing some illegal extra-curricular duties as part of her job. Unfortunately the film is saddled with a dull and slightly pious main character but Gershon rules the roost and livens things up whenever she's around.The always interesting Ron Silver plays in support as a chess-playing cop superior. There's lots of sex and steamy content to give this a raunchy feel at times and the expected twist ending. As a film, BLACK AND WHITE passes the time well enough even if it isn't particularly great, which I put down to the low budget.

This is a real pathetic attempt at a modern-day film noir. The concept was good, but was truly executed poorly! Starting first with:DIALOGUE - Excruciatingly painful. The dialogue between characters was similar to a screen test gone wrong. Some conversations seemed mismatched. At some points in the movie it seemed that conversing characters' lines weren't matching. If this was an editing error, then its an embarrassing one. STORYLINE/PLOT - Very transparent; a person born blind and deaf could see what was going to happen before it happened and is finality. And what was the point keeping certain aspects of the story a secret?!? There was no mystery about this movie whatsoever! (Except the mystery about how it was given the green light) And what was with the ending? It was so asinine, I'm not even going attribute it any space in this review. I will say this: if it was a way of bringing the story around, it was a sad attempt.CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT - Big zero! I'm not even sure who this movie was about. Apparently, the writers hadn't the first clue who the main character was; her or him? And their own story didn't mesh; it was very amateur. Also, I don't really believe that the main character - at his age whose living in LA - is THAT pious and innocent. And let's say - JUST FOR THE SAKE OF ARGUMENT - if this character really was that pious and innocent, he wouldn't break so easily. And if this story was about him I would think that his decline would've been the main focus; perhaps delved into a bit more. But alas, it wasn't. In conclusion: this movie was so pathetically embarrassing, don't tell anyone you saw it.

There are a couple of good things about this thoroughly routine cop mystery. Some of the performances are really pretty polished but they mostly come from actors in minor parts, such as Ron Silver and James Handy. And Silver looks great. His hair is combed back and up in what might be called a long brush cut. He's given a slight beard and mustache and a pair of rimless glasses which turns him into -- believe it or not -- a youngish Wolf Blitzer. None of the other performances are less than adequate with the possible exception of Allison Eastwood's, although she's certainly a beautiful woman. Painful to think that we may have lived through almost her entire film career, from "Tightrope," when she was eleven, through such highlights as "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil," to this.The plot's ordinary. One of the cops is shooting people through the eyeball for reasons no one can quite figure out. All they know is that it's a cop. Suspicion falls on one guy, then shifts to Gina Gershon, then shifts to -- well, enough. The last few minutes turn things around in a strictly predictable way.The photography is cheap-looking and nothing is made of the location so there is nothing in the way of local color. The script is meant to be dramatic rather than humorous but sometimes it sounds as if the writers' naturally occurring sense of the sardonic could no longer be repressed. Discussing some sort of perversion, one cop remarks: "So what? Sex is legal in this state. A couple more Democrats in the house and it'll be compulsory." The commercial plot develops in such a way as to keep a viewer interested, though not engaged.

I caught this film on HBO last night and started off thinking it was going to suck (like most B-Movie late night fare, uncut or not), but once Gina Gershon enters the picture (about 10 minutes in), the picture starts to really take off, building up a clever web of erotic tension and suspense that kept me glued to the screen, waiting to see what was going to happen next. The stereotypical ending--despite catching me off guard for some reason (maybe because it was 5 am or I couldn't believe they resorted to such a hackneyed gimmick, you decide)--is a bit of a letdown, but don't let that stop you from watching what turned out to be a surprisingly good erotic thriller (despite having extremely minimal nudity, none of it Ms. Gershon's, which I thought odd considering her role certainly warranted it). I give it a 7 out of 10 (it would have warranted an 8 if not for the ending). Worth a rental or purchase (or staying up well past your bedtime in my case). If you like cop films and/or erotic thrillers, this is a pleasant surprise that you should make the effort to track down. I don't know why the director, Yuri Zeltser, has not made more films; he certainly shows a lot of talent. Congratulations to Ms. Gershon for a wonderful "bad girl" performance!