cheap melodrama

Rating: 2/10 (20 August 2006)

The story was so contrived that the movie was unbelievable. And the dialogue was often forced, unnatural and stereotypical despite the writers obvious efforts to not be obvious. The "obvious effort" is what stands out.
It was a cheap melodrama which tried to throw in "profound observations" about race relations. but really, it is just a poorly written and extremely clumsy film.
In terms of "art" and "profound observation" this film is sorely lacking The actors are good  it is a shame a better film could not have been made. This film could only have been written by a "Liberally Educated" American whose human experiences don't go that deep and whose only real talent is a ready store of social causes that require little thought and confers instant moral authority on all those who profess to champion them. It is a shame that Hollywood and the Universities churn out these monsters of negation and futility with frightening regularity.
This is not art which has a social message. It is a "socially conscious soap opera" ... it is As The World Turns with a Puritanical American Liberal social message about race. Even though the writer tries very hard not to be conventional and to show us how daring he is, in the end the poor guy is trapped by his conventionality and lack of talent. It is the height of daring for this poor fellow to venture to show us that many people of all races distrust and are fearful of other races, that races can sometimes come together, and that life doesn't always have a happy ending. These themes are fine by me - I just wish it had been done with a little more art and a little less ham handedness.