Black and White
Screen Gems | Release Date: April 5, 2000 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
47
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 27 Critic Reviews
Positive:
7
Mixed:
13
Negative:
7
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
60
The New York TimesA.O. Scott
It's another of Mr. Toback's quick-talking autobiographies that, like the best pop, have a clock running on their expiration dates. Read full review
67
Austin ChronicleMarjorie Baumgarten
Fascinating, perplexing, amusing, and irascible. Read full review
20
Chicago ReaderJonathan Rosenbaum
An extravagant mess. Read full review
50
New York Daily NewsJack Mathews
There's something deeper at play in the film, something psychologically foul, voyeuristic and personal. Read full review
70
SlateDavid Edelstein
Gleefully pushes everyone's buttons...and that manages to exploit our own racial discomfort and envy in ways that leave us hungry for more. Read full review
20
Village VoiceJ. Hoberman
Peaks with its opening scene. Read full review
75
Christian Science MonitorDavid Sterritt
The story is a mess, as usual with Toback's movies, but intricacies of contemporary urban culture are vividly illuminated by his insistence on blurring the boundaries between fiction and reality. Read full review
40
TV Guide MagazineMaitland McDonagh
Strident and bombastic. Read full review
83
Entertainment WeeklyOwen Gleiberman
A pulsating snapshot of America caught in a mad, liberating identity crisis. Read full review
50
New York PostLou Lumenick
At heart a cliché-strewn melodrama about a bunch of white, upper-class Manhattan kids who aspire to ghetto culture.
60
NewsweekJack Kroll
Maverick moviemaker James Toback has latched on to the most fascinating cultural phenomenon of the American moment. Read full review
25
San Francisco ExaminerWesley Morris
Ideological disaster! Read full review
38
USA TodayMike Clark
Sometimes laughably incoherent.
60
Rolling StonePeter Travers
This lively mess proves that when Toback loses his head, he does it with style.
75
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
The agony of invention is there on the screen. Read full review
42
Portland OregonianShawn Levy
Too often monochromatic, programmatic and just plain lost.
75
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalle
Toback presents specific characters dealing with specific problems and, through their stories, somehow manages to take the temperature of the times. Read full review
25
Chicago TribuneBarbara Shulgasser
There is really no one to like in this film.
5
TNT RoughCutPauline Adamek
When worlds collide - people yawn.
60
Film.comRobert Horton
Works best as a free-flowing essay. Read full review
60
L.A. WeeklyManohla Dargis
A sui generis excursion into sex and race that is by turns terrible...and close to divine. Read full review
30
Los Angeles TimesJohn Anderson
The voyeuristic indulgences of a middle-aged filmmaker playing out his most deep-seated and unresolved sexual fantasies and anxieties. Read full review
40
Film.comJohn Hartl
The movie is such a mess that it seems to have been assembled from pieces randomly picked from the cutting-room floor. Read full review
40
Film.comSean Means
When your characters are only skin deep, so is your message. Read full review
40
SalonCharles Taylor
Toback's method of presenting the evidence without judgment backfires, finally appearing just as shapeless as the movie's structure. Read full review
70
Dallas ObserverGregory Weinkauf
Immediately disarming for its candor, verve, and sheer nerve. Read full review
57
Mr. ShowbizKevin Maynard
An audacious but underconceived blend of fiction and documentary that questions the idea of race and identity in America.
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