Don't Believe the Hype

brilliant actors, brilliant editing

Boring, long, and too preachy.

There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

The beginning of the story opens with a prophet spouting crazy prophecy about the Snake, the Lion and the Panther. Black (MC Jean Gab'1), our would be criminal ignores them. Eventually he hooks up with his cousin in Dakar about some diamonds being kept in his bank vault. The diamonds are used as a pay off to a dishonest bank president who launders money.As it turns out, Black is not the only person who has an eye on the diamonds. The film becomes a lion and snake movie, the African version of cat and mouse as Black hooks up with Pamela (Carole Karemera). During the film I keep expecting Richard Roundtree to pop out at any moment. It had that 70's feel. Good moving plot. Minor humor. Guys with Russian accents are the bad guys. Some weird stuff tossed in. Parental Guide: f-bombs, sex, nudity.

"Black" is a slick modern French action flick that tries to put a fresh spin on the genre by including elements of black magic, ancient prophecies, man-animal hybrids, etc. It largely works, until the climactic sequence which is, frankly, disappointing: it's supposed to be "lion & panther vs. snake" (you'll understand), but the panther goes out of the equation early, and the lion vs. snake fight is shot in near-total darkness and with quick cuts, making it practically impossible to see what's going on. But other action scenes are more exciting - one or two huge explosions are impressive. The powerful-looking MC Jean Gab'1 (yeah, that's his name!) and the very sexy Carole Karemera have a fleshy, electric chemistry; other assets to the film are the unusual setting (Senegal), and the 1970s-blaxploitation-style music score. **1/2 out of 4.

Despite the low rating this movie has on IMDb, I decided to watch it anyway. Still, I could have not and nothing would have been bad in this. The first hour is quite distracting, following the chase-for-a-better-plan of a young black french felon going back to his roots in Senegal, only motivated by the opportunity to rob a ton of raw diamonds from a typically African bank, i.e. an easy job, without any regards for the consequences, not learning anything from the total failure of the robbery opening the movie. That's a pretty good pitch in my opinion. The only problem is the rest of the characters are totally predictable — not to say a bunch of clichés, from the Russian war criminal to the strong yet somehow charming policewoman who would turn into the perfect match for the main character. Yet, that would not be so much of a problem, for an average robbery movie, with even some Ritchie/Tarantino-like moments. The soundtrack is nice though. Yet, that's not what makes this film a failure. They tried to inject the mysteries of black Africa, animist traditions and the fight of noble animals against the vile serpent, including voodoo, sorcery and transmutation. What does that have anything to do at all with a robbery-based movie?? Where "Blueberry" succeeded, "Black" fails and barely makes it, with obvious twists, actions scenes turning flat due to the poor editing, overseen situations, and a strange turn into a wild world where characters just seem to forget their goals and accept their fate without any questions regarding logics or the reason why they got here in the first place. It's a kind of Kismet, and the viewer would finally accept the fact that this movie got straight into the wall, just like the characters with their expectations. Usually, hiring black rappers for main muscle characters (MC Jean Gab'1 is a french rapper) does not give the best results… Sadly this movie makes no exception

This movie is not entirely an action movie. It's not a fantasy either. It's a weird hybrid, that might leave people confused, about how they should feel about it. I watched it at the Fright Fest in London and liked it. Despite it's late hour showing (which got even later, due to an unplanned screening of something else), the movie still was great. I could hold my attention, despite me and others being really tired and held us til the end.There are many action scenes in this movie, but there is also a lot of supernatural things going on. The main actor is really strong (in his performance) and almost everybody else falls in his shadow. A movie that bears a second (or more) viewing!