Whiteboyz (1999)

A lot of fun.

it is finally so absorbing because it plays like a lyrical road odyssey that’s also a detective story.

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

"White Boyz" has a good premise with the concept of white suburbans that are enticed by the ghetto lifestyle. The story and characters are under developed and loses pacing with the music videos and day dream fantasies. The acting of the lead is weak which makes the film fail. In addition to this the genre of it being a comedy is lost as it moves between bland serious drama with sprinkles of comedy. Almost all the scenarios in this film are serious and don't have any funny characters or light score music or songs to create a comedic tone of any kind. There has been better white boys acting black in movies like "Malibu's Most Wanted" or the character that Seth Green plays in "Can't Hardly Wait". Ultimately it was a good idea with very poor execution.

It is SO corny...it is the worst possible representation of an inspiring white hip hop prospect ever. Everything the main character says just makes him need to shut up even more. He doesn't know anything about being a rapper, he doesn't know anything about drug dealing, he doesn't know anything about being a gangster, and frankly it makes people in Iowa look really bad because i'm sure they are not really like that. He thinks becoming a hip hop star is all about being black and living in the city selling drugs. Yes, he actually wants to move to the ghetto in south side of Chicago. His head is in the wrong place and he will never become the rapper he dreams to be.

As I read reviews of this movie I just can't keep feeling like most of you just don't get it. I'm reading comments here on IMDb like "white boys trying to act like they are black (c'mon that is terrible)" or "can someone say Wigger...". You are missing the point. This movie is simply one big satire of young white teenagers who grow up in decent or rich environment (or Iowa) idolizing the ghetto life that they see on MTV and trying to mimic it. As a product of a large city public school system in the mid nineties I saw these kinds of kids every day. It's pretty depressing actually. Low self-esteem kids with terrible identity disorders trying so desperately to find themselves. Or not? Maybe most of them just don't know how to act. Whatever it is I'd have to say that this movie was on point with every aspect of this kind of lifestyle. For someone like me, who went to school with kids like this, Whiteboyz is a hilarious movie! Flip dog is just so incredibly lost in his gangster world, working out scenarios with Khalid before his talks to him, rapping in front of the mirror, etc. Khalid even tries to explain this to Flip and Flip is so lost he just doesn't understand what he is telling him. Khalid was probably the most normal kid in the movie. He respected his Mom, he has aspirations to go to college, and wasn't all about getting in trouble. What was the most revealing about what this movie was trying to do was the scene where James comes out of his "gangster" act and starts ranting racial slurs. Did James have multiple personalities? No. How could you miss the point after seeing that? There are plenty of people I'd like to show this movie to but sadly they won't get it. It's definitely one of the funniest movies I've ever seen. It was acted out perfectly and just down right hilarious. Unfortunately, most of the people just don't get it. Recommended as a wake up call to all you gangster white boys out there that grew up in a stable home. Cheers!

OK, only half-joking about the one line summary (alluding to the B. Boys throughout this comment), I am a huge Beastie Boys fan (and most of hip-hop in general; Run-D.M.C. are the kings). Yes, Flip (Danny Hoch), Trevor (Marc Webber), and James (Dash Mihok) are respectable emcees (no where as good as the Beasties) and have good hearts, but they live in a fantasy land. They are so caught up in their dreams of living the "good life", that they don't recognize how bad things are in reality. Flip seems to be the one who has the most trouble accepting things the way they are. His father has been laid off and his mother uses food stamps to pay for groceries, and above all, he has gotten his girlfriend Sara (Piper Perabo) pregnant. He is so caught up in the "false" glamour of the ghetto lifestyle, that he thinks he's black and practices explaining his 'hood background in front of a mirror. Really, the biggest problem is he just can't accept that he's white and living in Iowa, and that his only black friend is Khalid (Eugene Byrd), who quickly becomes disgusted with the way Flip and his friends are acting.Now, not that the "Whiteboyz" are splitting images of their New York counterparts (Mike D, Ad-Rock, and MCA), but they are going to experience the same harsh public criticisms that the Beastie Boys had gone through, and I suspect that if they hit it big (which they won't), they won't shape up their act (like the Beasties did) and become respectable rap artists. Even so, "Whiteboyz" doesn't aim to stand as a cautionary fable against whites in hip-hop, but more as a metaphor for the progressive movement of the music into non-African-American audiences. I mean, Flip lives in Iowa for crying out loud! The Beasties themselves, who before becoming involved with Def Jam, were three untalented punkers, who knew little if anything about hip-hop and eventually moved into rap and became the three great emcees they are today. Flip was the same way before, a slob I don't know, but he certainly acted differently from the way he acts in the beginning of the film. Anyways, unlike their New York counterparts, these "'boys" live in a fictionalized world where it will take an act of total stupidity to wake them up from this fantasy. Yes, by the end, the walls are all going to come crashing down."Whiteboyz" is undoubtedly one of the best films about hip-hop I have ever seen, and it shouldn't be missed by anyone. True it's geared towards a black audience (I'm African-American myself), but you can tell by the films central themes and the subject matter, it's geared more towards a white audience. Even so, don't miss it, regardless of skin color.9/10