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'Black and White' takes in-depth look at hip hop culture

Director Toback addresses racial issues in new improvisational film

"Black and White" is director James Toback's big, sloppy wet kiss, his extended love poem and his declaration of complete admiration for hip hop culture.

His new film is a candid, energetic dialogue about race relations in contemporary America. His subjects are rich white kids who emulate black culture, gangsta rappers immersed in the lifestyle and everyone in between - a Rainbow Coalition of extremes including black and white, gay and straight, rich and poor.

They riff, rap and generally rant - in improvised dialogue, no less - about the state of hip hop culture, using lines that would make even Spike Lee do a double take. It must be Toback's belief that such frankness is the only way to bridge the racial divide in this country - and this movie certainly promotes that idea.

If anything, it makes for some interesting and refreshing dialogue to listen to - keeping the viewer constantly engaged.

As always, some of the characters are more interesting than the others. Power from Wu Tang Clan commands an impressive film presence as an emerging rap artist named Rich.

Brooke Shields, decked out in dreadlocks and armed with a digital camera, plays Sam Donager, an independent filmmaker, who is married to a lust-driven gay man played by Robert Downey Jr.

Shields, playing against her sweet and goofy "Suddenly Susan" type, has finally proven herself an actress worth the hype, and her scenes with Downey Jr. are among the most engaging in the film.

Moreover, no one does shameless perversion and chatty sleaze better than Downey, even if this role is a slight variation on his other Toback collaboration "Two Girls and a Guy."

"Black and White" also happens to contain one of the most eerie performances so far this year - Mike Tyson playing himself as the mentor to Rich and the guy who wickedly slaps Downey Jr. after a blatant sexual advance.

Watching Tyson act is like watching the rich white kids bust out those rap lyrics - extremely awkward to see and painful to hear.

"Black and White" is at its best when it lets the diversities of the cast bounce off each other. It is here that the audience can see the genius of Toback's decision to allow his actors to completely improvise the script.

Under vague guidelines as to plot and character descriptions, the movie unfolds without pretension and without heavy-handedness that so many other issue-driven films fall into.

What is so wonderful about "Black and White" is that it is not issue-driven. This film is Toback's exploration of the current national hip hop obsession. He does not quite know where he is going with it, just as the audience does not know.

Thus, it becomes a film of mutual discovery, and a very exciting one at that.

Unfortunately, the film falters and collapses, like a rapper who stutters, under the weight of a contrived plot line of blackmail and murder. The actors spend all their time defining their position in the plot, whose side they're on and so on. The dialogue turns boring, the scenes lifeless.

Toback's intelligent exploration of hip hop culture self-destructs as a result of the same principles of improvisation and frankness that made its first half such a revelation.

In the confines of a plot line, each scene seems stage-y, like high school drama, and unbearably fake, in that "Pretty Fly for a White Guy" way.

The audience should forget about that though. Toback has made an important film, both for its experimentation cinematically and for the issues it dares to address. It harbors an invigorating grittiness and honesty, and most importantly, is, as one of its characters advises, always true to itself.