Higher Learning

I wish Singleton would keep his obvious bias racially feelings out of his movies and just make a movie that's real, instead of this laughable, trite garbage.

Example: In the movie 'Boyz In The Hood', Laurence Fishburne is giving a speech to his son and son's buddy and says "Why do you think there's a liquor store and gun store on every single corner in black neighborhoods? I'll tell you why. Because they want us to kill ourselvs." Yes, I can see how movies with black people suggesting evil white people are conspiring to kill all black people by "making them kill each other" will advance race relations.

As for Higher Learning, I think the title should have been shortened to 'High'. One must be very high to watch a movie like this and feel 'enlightened' by the end of the movie.

Let's see, basically all white males in this movie are either one of two things: Very bad or very weak. All black people are either cool, heroic, intelligent or victims.

Whites in this movie: The evil racist campus security, the evil white jock rapist, the weak white hippy who tries his hardest to understand Malik but Malik turns him down, the weak Jewish roommate who shits his pants like a little girl when Remmy pulls a gun on him, yet Malik plays it cool of course, and of course the oh so very evil and BAAAAD nazi skinheads! Oh yes, nazi skinheads are just killing black people daily in college campuses and all over the country. And of course the skinheads are very weak and stupid like Remmy.

Blacks in the movie: Laurence Fishurne as a wise professor, the strong black woman "I don't take no buuuulllshit" roommate, Ice Cube's cool street smart character, Malik's "struggle" to find himself in an evil white man's world, Tyra Bank's intelligent character who becomes a victim, Busta' Rhymes beating up two skinheads at one time etc etc.

What a bunch of laughable and ridiculous clichés. Singleton definitely has a chip on his shoulder when it comes to white people. This movie was every bit as racist as any pro nazi skinhead documentary. Worst movie ever made.

Columbus University is one of the finest in America. Into this place of higher learning comes a mix of students to join the already multicultural pot. Malik is a black track star who feels he is disadvantaged as he has to run and study, while others only have to run. Remy is a white teenager who is forced out of his dorm by his black roommate and finds friendship in an extreme group. Kristen is a young female who struggles to make friends and is assaulted by a man before falling in with a women's group. Their experiences intertwine in the small campus.

If anyone wonders why director John Singleton (he of Boyz n' the Hood) is now making things like 2Fast2Furious, this is as good a place to start looking as anywhere. After an assured start with Boyz, the director made a couple of films that had potential but just came out muddled or lacking something to make them work. Poetic Justice was one of them and this was another. Higher Learning had potential and you can see that it's heart is in the right place but it doesn't come off at all. The plot tries to be a mix of experiences but, because there are three or so characters up front, there is no time to develop them so their experiences are broad cultural brush strokes - the white kid sucked into extremism, the raped girl taken into lesbianism, the black man who has to work harder for everything.

As a result the plot never really engages and it all just goes where you expect it to go - and is less impacting as a result of it's plodding nature. This spills over into the characters too - they are all pretty much stereotypes that fit into their scenario rather than real characters. Singleton shows is bias in his direction and character selection. My wife said something about me watching a lot of `black' films in the past week and I said Higher Learning was not dominated by any one race - but I think I was wrong. Singleton clearly likes the characters played by Busta Rhymes, Ice Cube and Epps - they are cool and put upon where other characters (races) have fewer kind touches placed on them. Personally I thought every character had huge chips on their shoulders about their identity - but the African American characters are the only ones that are held up for praise in relation to their chips!

Having said that I did think Epps did OK - he made a lifeless character a little more interesting. Banks however is as one dimensional as I have grown to expect from her. Rapaport looks very young indeed but he does well. His character is lazily drawn and developed, but he manages to make him a little human - which took work looking at the film as a finished product. Swanson is too dippy and light - but then all the lesbian characters seem to be painted in a weird sort of light. Ice Cube and Busta Rhymes give extended cameos which require them to deliver their rap personas of thugz - they are laughably clichéd! Fishburne adds gravitas as he always does, but he has little to do and is given not only a poor accent, but also some `deep' dialogue that just sounds pretentious or like a fortune cookie.

Overall I saw what this film was trying to do but it didn't manage it. It was ambitious, but the wide spread meant that none of the plots or characters were allowed to develop and instead were left as hollow, broad stereotypes and scenarios. The film tries to go all deep and the final shot of the word `unlearn' against an American flag just feels like Singleton must have thought that he had been making incredibly profound points the whole time - instead it felt that his original idea had had a deeper point, but it was totally lost in delivery.

I found this film to be heavily laden with stereotypes - everything from the depiction of fraternity members being sexist, skirt-chasing rapists, to the african-american male doing the 'hood walk, to the white male hick who just has to end up becoming a neo-Nazi. The ending was uncalled for and decidedly cheesy. Makes you wonder if the writers/director ever went to college, and if so which ones, cause the one I went to was not nearly as exciting. I realize that Mr. Singleton was attempting to deal with multiple issues in a limited timespan, which accounts for the film having very little by way of realism, but that doesn't excuse many of the situations being as over the top as they were, nor does it warrant such heavy usage of stereotypes.

And the near lack of non-black and non-white (I don't count Jewish people as not being white) characters only served to lessen my respect for this piece of work. I am South Asian myself (that's the Indian subcontinent for those who feel geographically challenged) and, in general, find our lack of presence in any mainstream production about higher education just a little bit annoying, especially given the large numbers of such people on any college campus. And by presence, I don't mean "boy at fountain" or "girl in classroom" cardboard characters. I mean real, live people with relevant parts.

The cinematography, on the other hand, was great. His crowd scenes in particular were shot beautifully.

After being blown away by Boyz n' the 'hood, I was very disappointed by Higher Learning. I give it a 4 out of 10.

The film's design seems to be the alpha and omega of some of the major issues in this country (U.S.). We see relationships all over at the university setting for the film. Befittingly, the obvious of student v.s. teacher is present. But what the film adds to its value is its other relationships: male v.s. female, white v.s. black, and the individual v.s. society. But most important of all and in direct relation to all of the other relationships is the individual v.s. himself.

I was amazed at how bilateral a point of view the director gave to showing the race relations on campus. Most films typically show the injustices of one side while showing the suffering of the other. This film showed the injustices and suffering of both sides. It did not attempt to show how either was right, although I would say the skin heads were shown a much crueler and vindictive (quite obvious towards the end). The film also discusses sex and rape. It is ironically this injustice that in some ways brings the two races together, for a time. Lawrence Fishburne does an over-the-top performance as the sagacious Profesor Phipps. He crumbles the idea of race favortism and instead shows the parallelism of the lazy and down-trodden with the industrious and positive. Other stars that make this film are Omar Epps, Ice Cube, and Jennifer Connelly. Michael Rapaport gives an excellent portrayal of a confused youth with misplaced anger who is looking for acceptance. Tyra Banks make her film debut and proves supermodels can act.

Higher Learning gets its name in showing college as more than going to class and getting a piece of paper. In fact, I would say the film is almost a satire in showing students interactions with each other, rather than some dry book, as the real education at a university. It is a life-learning process, not a textual one. I think you'll find "Higher Learning" is apropos to the important issues at many universities and even life in general. 8/10

good acting, bad script...this film attempted to cover every issue of a controversial nature that one might experience in college...problem is the film's too short to effectively and realistically explore and resolve these issues (if he had his heart set on making a film about racism, lesbianism, rape, and interracial conformity then perhaps Singleton might have wanted to invest in a cable mini-series) and for this what we got was a mix of stereotypes/cliches that made this too predictable and, at times, ridiculous to watch. Nevertheless, great acting from Epps, Rappaport and Fishburne.