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This is really two movies. The first one is the race role-reversal gimmick that demands your attention as the main theme. The second is a crime story about a decent guy caught up in a crime situation.
The race movie is lame. For a role-reversal to work, it needs to be fair in its analogies. Instead of complicated race relations, we get a world where good and evil are crystal clear (in black and white, one might say). It isn't US society of today, or even of 1995 - the racism is more like Jim Crow. Consequently, instead of offering insights and maybe teaching a lesson, it just polarizes viewers into taking sides and finding fault with the analogies. This could have been so much better with a less ham-handed story and more realistic characters. The race reversal was a good idea and that's why I watched. But the execution was poor.
The crime story was OK. Not great, but as good as most TV crime stories. A good man is trying to get ahead and instead he unjustifiably gets fired and his life is ruined. So he reacts without thinking it through, and the situation snowballs until he has no real possibility to resolve it. After you've tried to forget about the silly race angle, you can appreciate the predicament and try to imagine how you might resolve it yourself. You know it will end badly.
So, as race parable, the movie fails miserably. As crime story it is not great but perhaps worth watching when there's nothing better on.
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This is really two movies. The first one is the race role-reversal gimmick that demands your attention as the main theme. The second is a crime story about a decent guy caught up in a crime situation.
The race movie is lame. For a role-reversal to work, it needs to be fair in its analogies. Instead of complicated race relations, we get a world where good and evil are crystal clear (in black and white, one might say). It isn't US society of today, or even of 1995 - the racism is more like Jim Crow. Consequently, instead of offering insights and maybe teaching a lesson, it just polarizes viewers into taking sides and finding fault with the analogies. This could have been so much better with a less ham-handed story and more realistic characters. The race reversal was a good idea and that's why I watched. But the execution was poor.
The crime story was OK. Not great, but as good as most TV crime stories. A good man is trying to get ahead and instead he unjustifiably gets fired and his life is ruined. So he reacts without thinking it through, and the situation snowballs until he has no real possibility to resolve it. After you've tried to forget about the silly race angle, you can appreciate the predicament and try to imagine how you might resolve it yourself. You know it will end badly.
So, as race parable, the movie fails miserably. As crime story it is not great but perhaps worth watching when there's nothing better on.
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