Black and White

by Gerald Peary

It's not only sex that obsesses James Toback: in Black and White, this outrageous writer/filmmaker tackles race in contemporary America. Much of the movie takes place in his fantasy version of rapperland, a New York apartment where a collective of young African-Americans practice their raw street poetry amid the distractions of elephantine TV screens and sprawled-about takeout food, exploitative white producers (Toback himself in a spirited co-star turn), ditsy white documentarians (a hilarious duo of Brooke Shields and Downey Jr.), white anthropologists (model Claudia Schiffer, stiff as an academic femme fatale), white undercover cops (a fabulously sleazy, motormouth Ben Stiller), and white teen groupies (Bijou Phillips, Jared Leto, former Ford model Kim Matulova). There's a contrived storyline involving a black basketball player (the Knicks' Allan Houston) and his decision whether to take a $50,000 bribe and shave points. But Toback's largely improvisatory movie is far more successful when his cast just let go, as in the colorful screwball scene in which Downey Jr.'s character, barely in the closet, cruises a cute young guy on the Staten Island ferry, or when Mike Tyson as Himself spars linguistically with the actors.