"Black or White" had a lot going for it but perhaps it bit off more than it could chew. As the plot of the movie began to settle in I thought, wow we are in for an interesting ride. So many themes that are ripe for exploring seemed present in the first few minutes of the film. In the context of this movie, instead of looking at these as themes, let's look at them as plot devices or obstacles for potential conflict and tension. There is the single parent, in this case a grandparent, raising a child. There is the generation gap between grandparent and grandchild. There is the gender challenge, in this case a male raising a female. There is the idea of loss and what it is to keep moving in this world after we have lost a loved one and partner that shared our life with us. Finally there is the theme of race, again in this case a white man raising a biracial granddaughter.
So much potential is here, yet for 80% of the film I felt I was watching a made for Lifetime melodrama. Everything from the mournful saxophone soundtrack straight from a 1992 slow burn thriller to the clunky and forced comments on race, to the too on the nose comparisons between the grandfather (Kevin Costner) and the girl's father (André Holland) to the un true to life court scenes made me shift restlessly in my seat and wonder how much more time was left until I could depart this sinking ship of a film.
There was some interesting casting choices made. Comedian Bill Burr plays Rick Reynolds, Elliot Anderson's (Kevin Costner) friend and lead lawyer in the custody battle of Elliot's granddaughter. Community's Gillian Jacobs makes a couple appearances early in the film as Rick's other half and to provides a bit of comedy relief but oddly disappeared from the 2nd half of the movie for no reason other than a purposeful tone shift, but the disappearance has no on screen explanation provided.
The tension and drama of the film was too meandering and did little to engage the audience and when the stakes were finally raised for a scene here or there it felt too much like a paint by numbers approach. In other words I found the film boring, it made me only care about closing my eyes and when it tried to break from being boring it was just too predictable. It was like seeing the bad guy in a play waiting in the wings ready to make his next stage appearance.
Kevin Costner financed this film and it was very important for him to make. I thought the topics he wanted to tackle were worthy and some of what the script had to say was important for us to discuss as viewers. It just was clumsy in its presentation which is frustrating when thinking about what the film could have been.
Blarv Rating out of 10: 3.5
So much potential is here, yet for 80% of the film I felt I was watching a made for Lifetime melodrama. Everything from the mournful saxophone soundtrack straight from a 1992 slow burn thriller to the clunky and forced comments on race, to the too on the nose comparisons between the grandfather (Kevin Costner) and the girl's father (André Holland) to the un true to life court scenes made me shift restlessly in my seat and wonder how much more time was left until I could depart this sinking ship of a film.
There was some interesting casting choices made. Comedian Bill Burr plays Rick Reynolds, Elliot Anderson's (Kevin Costner) friend and lead lawyer in the custody battle of Elliot's granddaughter. Community's Gillian Jacobs makes a couple appearances early in the film as Rick's other half and to provides a bit of comedy relief but oddly disappeared from the 2nd half of the movie for no reason other than a purposeful tone shift, but the disappearance has no on screen explanation provided.
The tension and drama of the film was too meandering and did little to engage the audience and when the stakes were finally raised for a scene here or there it felt too much like a paint by numbers approach. In other words I found the film boring, it made me only care about closing my eyes and when it tried to break from being boring it was just too predictable. It was like seeing the bad guy in a play waiting in the wings ready to make his next stage appearance.
Kevin Costner financed this film and it was very important for him to make. I thought the topics he wanted to tackle were worthy and some of what the script had to say was important for us to discuss as viewers. It just was clumsy in its presentation which is frustrating when thinking about what the film could have been.
Blarv Rating out of 10: 3.5