Zebrahead

This is a tight film. In fact, except for perhaps the last 20 minutes, the film is near-perfect. Michael Rapaport is absolutely excellent in the lead role, the best role I've seen him in, save Higher Learning. And N'Bush Wright and DeShonn Castle were also excellent in their parts. Ron Johnson was convincing as the aptly named 'Nut' as well. The film was heartfelt, with enough light attitude to balance the darker and more serious side.

The few issues I had were: The Kevin Corrigan 'I live in industrial Detroit and look what those evil companies have done to the neighborhood' scenes were completely unnecessary. They had nothing to do with the film except perhaps looking cool. We already know from the setting and characters that it's not exactly pretty and that it's a rundown neighborhood. Also, Zach's father was a little too lucid with Zach, especially concerning his own sexual prowess/conquests. he *is* still the boy's father. Also, the last 20 minutes were overdoing it. Until then time flew by, the film is very close to air-tight for the first hour and twenty, but then it started to drag. The film had pretty much said it all, we didn't need the whole premise explained to us as though we were mindless.

This is *not* another Jungle Fever, nor is it another Higher Learning; which is both a good thing and a bad thing. Good because it's a separate entity, it stands well on its own and deals with a too-familiar situation with originality and strong acting performances. Bad because the script could have been tighter; even though it was very well scripted, there were some scenes that didn't need to be there, others which could have been written better. The cinematography was also lacking; this film could have been shot with much more gusto, even without being fancy.

Overall: Considering this is a low-budget film with no-name actors (at the time, at least) and little other than Oliver Stone's name to back it, it does a damn fine job. There are improvements that would have helped, but its strong enough to stand on its own...better than many major films can. It's not as good as the aforementioned Jungle Fever or Higher Learning, but in a way its more raw in a good way. If it wasn't so preachy and if it was about 10-20 minutes shorter (with a better conclusion) it would easily rate and eight or nine. As it stands: 7/10.

Film Critic AS a primer on race relations, what makes Zebrahead unique, and uniquely fascinating, is its point-of-view. The film begins with an assumption largely ignored in the works of Spike Lee or John Singleton - a belief that young white Americans are being heavily influenced by urban black culture, by the music and the language and the dress, by the mania of Arsenio Hall and the magic of Michael Jordan. So the script takes an admittedly extreme example of that influence - a white teen-ager reared in the predominantly black environs of Detroit - and examines the implications. Can cultural conditioning yield tolerance and empathy as readily as it generates prejudice and hate? The question itself is hopeful, and the movie delivers a complex answer with subtlety and style. Making his feature debut, writer-director Anthony Drazan has done his homework well - he too is the product of a "culturally mixed" background, and a man with an obvious zest for research. Shooting over 60 hours of video footage in New York City high schools, Drazan used that raw material as the basis for his fictional screenplay, changing the setting to the urban fringes of the Motor City and finding his alter ego in the youthful character of Zack (Michael Rapaport), a Jewish kid who, by sheer dint of exposure, is "more on the home-boy side than the white-boy side." The result is a vibrant picture that, from the rough dialogue to the hip-hop soundtrack, from the electronic "hall-monitors" to the washroom crackheads, resonates with the ring of truth. Certainly, for Zack, his "home-boy" side is not an assumed pose but a nurtured fact - he naturally loves the music that flows around him; his best friend is black because so are many of his classmates; ditto for Nikki (N'Bushe Wright), the new girl in town, the one with the sassy manner and the sweet smile. When Zack and Nikki go out on a Saturday night, it feels natural, inevitable. Of course, that single date becomes the pebble tossed in the pond, and the rest of the film traces the tragic ripples.

The revealed patterns are intriguing. The fortysomethings, the teen- agers' parents and teachers, are wholly incapable of viewing the relationship through anything but a racial lens. Some are more laissez faire than others - Zack's philandering dad (Ray Sharkey) seems to have transcended bigotry by abandoning any emotion - but all are fearful, pessimistic. The same is largely true of the kids' peers, yet there are a few telling exceptions - young adults who, as a way of life, not as a matter of principle, have genuinely broken through the colour barrier. It may be sentimental to argue, as the film does, that hope rests with the young. But it's not sentimental to show exactly how and why. Despite some small flaws (a few too many plot complications and a recurring visual image that seems tacked on), that's Drazan's real triumph here - within the turmoil and the tragedy he explores, there emerges a glint of hope that doesn't smack of wishful thinking.

And hope breeds hope. One wants to believe that, by extension, the glint can become a beacon, and that a racially mixed high-school can double as an educational microcosm - a troubled hotspot that grows the seeds of a solution from within the very problems it creates. Yes, one dearly wants to believe, and Zebrahead gives us a reason. Benjamin Miller, Filmbay Editor.

Initially I suspected that this might be another rather typical examination of racial strife in high school, almost of an ABC Afterschool special caliber. However, it was quite impressive in its portrayal not only of racial tensions but of the quality of friendship between two young men. Michael Rapaport typically flashes a somewhat limited range in his roles (he has most certainly been typecast by now) but his performance here has exceptional moments - particular in the last scene of the film where his emotion is tangible without being overdone.

Take Save The Last Dance minus the dance and do a role reversal and you get ZebraHead. This movie which touches on interracial dating was one of the best little seen films of 1992. Micheal Rappot as Zack proved his leading man stauts at early age in this powerful film. I think if the film were released today it'd be just as powerful. If you haven't seen it you should.

A well-intentioned and rather interesting study into condemnation and the culture of the youth in the 1990s, there is however little that is done with the material. Too much time is spent on showing why the relationship is not approved, and the film spends too little time showing how and why the relationship has resulted. The film has some important things to say in terms of prejudices in society, but, it never manages to present them in a way so that they do not seem hackneyed. Either way, some fine acting - from both the leads in particular - solidifies the movie when the other elements do not suffice.