Black and White

(this was part of a full Film Festival review)

Opening the festival is Dave Smith and Jeremy Dick's comedy Black & White. I mean, it is a comedy, right? Because I can't fathom that something so egregiously bad, so atrociously written can be considered anything less than a satire on serious movies. I'm praying (?!?) that's the case, because boy, this movie sucks.

As the name implies, Black & White is a movie about racial tension in a small U.S. town, which is the backdrop for the relationships of 3 friends. We're informed, through a prologue, that the town is divided into 3 types of people: black people who hate whites, white people who hate blacks, and white people who aren't racist. This is the first of comedy genius: The exclusion of that absurd category known as black people who aren't separatists. But oh well. Our 3 main characters all belong to one of these categories, and in a twist that would make William Shakespeare blush, the white supremacist guy's father just happens to be the leader of the Klan or something to that extent, and the black guy's father just happens to be some sort of leader for the black guys. Well gee whiz. Stuck in the middle of this is our idealistic main character, the most saintly person ever, who's trying to put an end to the struggle.

Of course, no one gives a flying fuck about these morons. I think the directors realized this, focusing instead on black people killing white people and white people killing black people. Oh, the entertainment. Dead niggers here, dead crackers here, it's all in good fun, right? The dialogue is so abominable that I can't begin to imagine how someone would write this without having parody in this mind. Every damn line of dialogue is classic Character Exposition™, with most people spouting off some racist justifications like the directors somehow feel they should be hammering some stupid non-point over my head.

As more lamely directed scenes of carnage end, the movie suddenly takes us back to those main characters that had been ditched for half the movie. Our young hero Mother Theresa makes a reunion in which he hopes Nigger and Cracker (because that's the only extent to which character development goes here, folks) make up. But it ends in some more senseless carnage, and more senseless carnage, and then the funniest fucking ending I have seen in my life, with a Klansman announcing that "the war between the nigger and the white man is over in this town". I'm howling in laughter.

So to sum it up: Horrible writing, horrible directing: horrible movie. 1/5. Stay away. Thank God (?!?) that I decided to watch all the movies after the film festival was over, because I was aware that the beginning of it was shit and that it'd get better afterwards. Otherwise I'd probably have given up.