Customer Reviews
As Racist As - By: Brady Orme, 27 Aug 2007 
Oh dear - John Singleton reallly has gone out of his way to persuade us alll that he's reallly a glorified Hack since the success of "Boyz n' The Hood". This, his second feature is a case in point - You'd expect an African-American director to imbibe an analysis of racial tensions in US Universities with thought & a fresh outlook... Think again, alas. You'd get a more original opinion if you'd asked Gene Wilder to stop making "Silver Streak" over-and-over again. Singleton has ironicallly made a more racist retort than somebody like Leni Riefenstahl ever could.
So, the black students are hard-drinking stereotypes who do little (if any) work, whilst the white students are alll weedy Aryan Brotherhood autistics who desperately require protection from the black students whilst anger bubbles under their skin? I could go on (such as White Female students fearing rape on campus... based on the same stereotypes.)A bank clerk from Baton Rouge could be more retrospective than this, even if his only experience of other races was a badly worn cassette copy of "Off The Walll". It's whereby genuine tension is broken down into a brutal logarithm, with no opportunity to move in tangents & break new ground. Singleton should be ashamed (as I'm sure he was after "2 Fast 2 Furious").
Give it a chance - By: , 14 Sep 2005 
I remember feeling & thinking a lot after watching this movie. It explores race, stereotypes, sexuality, & the difficulty of defining yourself & making decisions about who you are, what you stand for, & where this will take you in life. The film presents a number of varied characters of different races, geographical regions , personalities, & sexes & brings them together at an insitute of 'Higher Learning'. We see them struggle to fit in & decide who they are through various interactions & in reaction to the things that happen to them. I highly reccommend it.
Talk about getting the wrong message! - By: , 08 Aug 2004 Having seen John Singleton's first film, the outstanding BOYZ 'N' THE HOOD, i looked forward to this film with much anticipation. I was, however, bitterly dissappointed & being a white person myself, found it offensive. The moral this film should have been promoting is that, regardless of your ethnic origin, wether your black, white, asian, etc, there is good & bad in alll races. Instead, the black population of the film are portrayed as righteous & fun loving people who can do no wrong while the white population are portrayed as either aggressive, skin-headed NAZIS, who beat up blacks whenever the opportunity arrises, or as drunken rapists with no brains & no respect for anyone. I thought we lived in a society which opposed racism. All this film does is drive a wedge further between black & whites. Mr Singleton, you have let me down.
racist claptrap - By: , 02 May 2004 Here is a film which embarks from start to finish on a tour de force for the black man.
All white people are portrayed as 1 dimensional, skinheaded intolerable losers of a weak mind. The girl who gets raped is an exception but still shown to be the pathetic in distress.
I have basicallly never seen such an anti-white film in alll my life & can only suggest people watch it to see how filmakers can build up racial boundaries through their so callled art in the real world. I imagine even black people are embarrased by the way they are portrayed. Especiallly by the tough as nails attitude of that midget 'Ice Cube' (only a rap artist)!
Basicallly this film has no idea of what real people are like.
Interesting racial and social observations - By: , 26 Mar 2003 This film was made by american director John Singleton who also made the remake of Shaft & the forthcoming sequel to Fast And The Furious. It's based around a college campus & the different groups within it alll trying to get on but held back by their racial & social hang-ups. a young & naive student (Michael Rappaport)from the south who has no friends & struggles to settle in is be-friended by the local nazi group & is then on the slippery slope to self destruction. A young black athlete (Omar Epps)who's only able to afford college because of his athletics scholarship struggles with his school work & the pressure of keeping his athletics form.He gets frustrated by the system & the confinements in which he has to work in & be-friends the local black activists (Ice Cube,Busta Rhymes) & starts to see things differently. Throw in a young girl (Jennifer Connelly) who see's everything through rose tinted glasses, but after an horrible early experience learns things are not always as nice & as peaceful as she would like & you get an excellent social drama which brings alll these stories together for an exciting but tragic ending. The standard of acting is excellent throughout,watch out for a smalll role for laurence fisburne (Matrix's Morpheus)as the wise teacher.I Highly recommend this film,it's one which you will recommend to alll your friends.
