Brooklyn Babylon (2001)

Excellent, Without a doubt!!

Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

A story that's too fascinating to pass by...

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

This movie started out really gripping with some clever juxtapositions of the two cultures. The hip-hop scene and the Jewish wedding set the stage for what seemed a very promising movie. For three-quarters of the movie things developed organically (if somewhat slow) towards a very tender liaison dangereux. After that, the movie just went bust for me. The threat of escalating violence is not explored, nor is there a visible means of a solution. True, in real life there are no easy solutions, either, but making a choice for either one in a movie would seem at least cinematographically correct. As it is, this movie tethers out to a cliché showdown-between-the-two-antagonists (Sol and Judah) (in the park, remember? Oh, you forgot, well, I didn't think it very memorable either) and an end shot of Sarah with a baby. And that's all, folks. What? Hello! This I found particularly depressing. Where is Sol? Is he dead? did they elope? Did he decide to stick with his music and leave his love to raise their child alone ? "Planting a seed for Zion", as the old Rastafari put it constitutes knocking women up and then leaving them? Surely that can't be the case. Failing to work out such a massive part of the story for me is just plain lame. It is mentioned too we get to see too little of Sara. I agree. That combined with the fact that Sol is sometimes not entirely likable (not to mention sometimes a bit too cliché Rasta-drone) takes a lot of credits away from the love story. And I've heard better rappers, too.

Of course it is Romeo and Julliet, but then so many movies and plays and books are Romeo and Julliet. It is a time honoured tradition to interpret a classic story. The leads in this film play star-crossed lovers in a very touching way. I must admit that there were a number of times in this movie where it felt "hollow" (like when the subject of a painting or a sketch isn't balanced out by the negative space) and I told myself that this movie was the working of a director who was still growing into a mature ability. Nonetheless I became involved with the characters: As protagonists, Sara, King Sol, and Don Ras; And as antagonists Judah and Sketch. Great work folks. There was only one scene that was much stronger than the rest of the movie and which had a very different feel from the rest of the film, and if you have seen this movie then you will be nodding your head with a smile.

I saw this last nite and while I enjoyed many of the performances and certain scenes I was left with nothing after I left the theatre.The whole movie was contrived and did not offer any solution or direction towards resolving the plot. The beginning fools you into believing the movie takes place in 1991 but according to Marc Levin, who spoke after the show alongside tariq trotter, the movie takes place in the present.I think Levin has no idea what he's doing. Give me that $4 million budget and I will bring a masterpiece the theatre.

I agree with the last reviewer that the best thing about this film is the fact that it features DA ROOOOOOTS!!! Tariq "Black Thought" Trotter stars as an up and coming MC of an organic hip hop band.... basically he does a fine job playing a character based on himself. Karen Goberman is also good as the female lead, although their relationship isn't very well written, which holds true for the writing as a whole. Everything about the film except for the performances feels contrived.... their relationship, the tension between the Black and Jewish communities that it's set against (even with the understanding that these tensions are very real). I'd like to see Tariq and The Roots working on other films.... hopefully next time they'll have a better script to work with.