Linbeymusol Wonderful character development!

MamaGravity good back-story, and good acting

LouHomey From my favorite movies..

Marva It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

Alban Minor Spoilers On the plus side, it was believable. It had good acting. I especially liked Harry Belafonte getting irate at the inept white cashier for not helping him get robbed by John Travolta. That was a nice touch to add some twisted realism to the movie. I laughed at that one part. But the rest was just so depressing, and that story line (apart from the racial switch) has been done to death. Take Boys in the Hood and switch the white and black people around. There was no real point other than the fact that racism exists in our world and that it's a darned shame people get discriminated against. Really? Wow! Who knew? So if you want to be miserable and your favorite Blues radio station has been taken over by the Dance Mix Syndicate, go rent White Man's Burden. Otherwise, don't.

kosherpig18 just because the movie reversed the roles that blacks and whites play in society did not make the movie any less clichéd. it was the same tired story of a poor man trying to overcome all of the obstacles that life lays in front of him. if his "normal life" weren't hard enough something happens to make him even more desperate. just when he sees fit to do the right thing... i thought that John Q was a much better version of this theme. additionally why did john travolta have to speak in some sort of Ebonics? is it because people are poor and oppressed that they speak that way? there were so many things that did not make sense about the movie. i understand that the writer was trying to make a point of showing how it is for blacks in a white society. most dolls and action figures in U.S. society are white making it difficult for African_Americans to find roles models for their children. so in the movie they were black instead of white. but why was every single policeman black instead of white except for one white female cop at the very end? why was every single personality on the TV shows black? pardon the pun but it was so black and white that it offended my intelligence. i could have figured out the point had it been done in more "realistic" terms.

philblyghton I expected good things from this film as I tend to admire directors and screenwriters who take a visually arresting premise and manipulate it in order to prompt self reflection in the audience (The Elephant Man for example). In addition, I am a big fan of Travolta and the role seemed an artistically sound one for him to undertake. Initially, the widespread symbolism is interesting and inventive, yet becomes overbearing relatively quickly, and to me it seemed that the director underestimated his audience's perception and continually rammed home his point with the subtlety of Dolph Lundgren.The film ultimately left me frustrated because I thought the idea was a good one but the story simply wasn't multi-faceted enough to be engaging. Aside from the characters played by Travolta and Belafonte, most of the supporting cast was very underwritten, particularly the families of both men. However, the performances were very good, and I thought Belafonte conveyed the defeatism and inherent arrogance of his role particularly well.Overall though, I thought this was pseudo-art: it masqueraded as a deep and meaningful examination of the social relevance of race, but ended up as a very simplistic story disguised by delusions of self worth.5/10

sibisi73 Nakano's film delivers little subtlety, and even less originality than many seem to give it credit for. The one-note premise never develops into anything other than that and leaves the actors floundering in a movie that would have made a competent short, but not a feature. The performances are all passable, but the story loses credibility and goes nowhere, taking a long time to get there. Despite the writer's best efforts some of the scenes seem to reinforce rather than break down some racial stereotypes, and it's really not that shocking to see Travolta as a down-trodden white guy because they actually do exist - as do rich black guys (ask Harry Belafonte if you don't believe me!).