WHITE MAN'S BURDEN. Directed and written by Desmond Nakano; produced by Lawrence Bender for Rysher Entertainment. Starring John Travolta and Harry Belafonte. Rated R.
More reviews by —
TITLE:
RATING:
White Man's Burden is a movie full of fascinating and thought-provoking images but whose story practically runs on empty.
Set in a society where racial roles and stereotypes are perfectly reversed from modern America, it defines and highlights racism in a peculiarly vivid way.
The images of reversal (white lawn jockeys, white ghettos, a black benefit high-fashion show to raise money for inner city children who are all white, one of those white kids choosing a brown-skinned action figure toy) are well-constructed and powerful enough to keep you interested for most of the movie.
But, unfortunately, the story that accompanies this "background" falls far short. It's corny and predictable, and depressing, to boot. Not to mention poorly paced, with entirely too much driving around and not nearly enough movement.
It's doubly a shame, too, since the actors really deserve better. Both Travolta and Belafonte, as a laborer and a business tycoon, deliver moving performances, as does Kelly Lynch, as Travolta's wife. Their roles are partly stereotypes, but not wholly so.
Belafonte isn't vicious or sadistic, just casually racist the way so many upper-crust whites are in the real world. And Travolta's character, though no rocket scientist, is a decent husband and father who just wants to be able to provide for his family.
But, through no fault of his own, he's not able to, and from the point when he loses his job, you know how the movie's going to end.
White Man's Burden could be an important consciousness-raising movie as a kind of educational video. But with a better story it would have been all the more powerful.
Rudyard Kipling, who urged his turn-of-the-century British countrymen to "take up the white man's burden" of colonialism, would probably freak out to see the use his phrase is put to here.
It's ironic that the legacy of Kipling's burden is partly what burdens us today. And White Man's Burden makes you feel the weight in a whole new way.
December 20, 1995