smooth_op_85 Bamboozled is the story of Pierre Delacroix, a Harvard educated writer who is ripped for his Cosbyesque ideas that lead to cancellation. Michael Dunwitty claiming to be "blacker than you Delacroix" and can "Say the word n*@&a, I have a black wife and have 2 biracial kids" So he goes in the opposite direction and revives a minstrel show, thinking it will be so offensive that it will be canceled. Much to his chagrin the minstrel show Delacroix puts up is actually a hit. The movie starts from there, as it is mired in controversy and has reactions from both sides of the spectrum (extreme love to extreme hate) references to black power make their way into the movie Biting satire about how America doesn't really want to see intelligent black characters on TV.

Rodrigo Amaro "Bamboozled" tells the story of Pierre Delacroix, a desperate African-American writer (played by Damon Wayans) that needs to create a different show to his white boss (Michael Rapaport) in order to raise the low network's ratings. His idea: a minstrel show where black actors paint their faces even blacker (remembering the times when white actors painted their faces to portray black characters because African-Americans were forbidden to act). The boss likes the idea, but Pierre's assistant, Sloan (played by Jada Pinkett-Smith in a good performance) thinks that this is not a good idea, claiming that the audiences would react badly, but she follows his project and they hire two street artist dancers to the show. They change their names to Mantan (Savion Glover) and Sleep 'n Eat (Tommy Davidson). Both of them disagree with some aspects of the show, which contains many unfortunate references to African-Americans, but they stay in the project because they're homeless and they have no money. Like Mantan says: "If I can dance and make some money that's OK!"And the show who had everything against it turns out to be a enormous success making Pierre a influential person in the TV business. But like Tom Petty used to sing, what goes up must comes down and that eventually happened when people starts to complain about the racist and not funny show. One of these people is Sloan's brother (played by Mos Def) leader of an rap group that feels that something must be done to end with the show. In the middle of all this mess are the crisis of conscience of all the characters brought to this controversial matter. Are they doing it only for the money? Self-respect worths nothing? These are some of the questions that this movie shows us. The good aspect of the movie is that Lee puts humor in situations that in real life could be very embarrassing, such as the first meeting between the dancers and the boss, when he says to one of them to dance over the table, while he laughs hysterically, or when he adds ideas to the show, considering himself to be more black than Pierre. But, on the other hand, Lee was ambiguous in saying to the viewers if the minstrel show was intended to be funny or not. When the show was showed in the first time I wasn't laughing at all, thinking that was a strange and almost pointless moment, but then I thought maybe that's the idea, racial stereotypes are only funny if you're at the other side of the audience just like the extras who were applauding to every joke. But to us viewers we're not supposed to laugh because it's not funny, it was just a way to tell that many times TV executives and writers fails to show what's funny and what's not. Many people complained about Damon Wayans french accent saying that it wasn't funny, that it was annoying, but I say that's not true, in fact, this is was a Lee's statement that really works in the movie, because Pierre was an Harvard graduated, so he wanted to pass this "white image" to his network bosses. A satire as he explained in the beginning period. The first thing that comes to the mind of many viewers of this movie is the countless references to Sidney Lumet's "Network" (specially in the notable Mantan's protest scene) showing the media power over his spectators, how producers and writers get their ideas to create a show that be appealing to all audiences many times using themes politically incorrect to guarantee high TV ratings. The main difference between "Network" and Spike Lee's "Bamboozled" is the way both stories are presented; this time we had lots of black humor and numerous real life references that wasn't showed in Lumet's work. I'm not saying that this movie is a better work than "Network", but it's a bold story that puts it very close to the greatness of many controversial movies on the subject. Spike Lee enters this decade with another great movie, but lacks the rage protest of the wonderful "Do The Right Thing" and don't have many good performances like "Malcolm X" had. 10/10

Boston_Sox I went through equal parts of liking and disliking this movie. Enough so that I feel the need to write it out here.First the good: The message of this movie is right on. It really makes you think about portrayals of blacks in popular culture not only in the past, but in the present. How different is the dichotomy between the straight laced Tommy Lee Jones and the "hip/cool" Will Smith in a movie like Men in Black from that between the "massa" ("yes sa") and the black house servant in movies of old? So the movie is good in terms of making you think about these things. All of the scenes showing the black face performances on the "Man-Tan Show" and the montage of blacks in entertainment at the end of the movie are quite poignant, and frankly left me speechless and fixated on the television screen.The bad: The acting and script left a lot to be desired. Okay, to be fair, Damon Wayans left a lot to be desired. Has a good performance EVER come out of a Wayans brother? I understand he was trying to perform a "white" black man, but every word out of his mouth felt so forced that it was painful to listen to. Other than Wayans the acting, while not superb, wasn't terrible. The script however had a lot of problems. It felt like it was forced along too much, being made to lead to Mr. Lee's agenda rather than unfold naturally as a story. This made it feel rushed at times and completely ludicrous at others.Overall, if you want to be made to think about race in America and in entertainment, this is a good movie to pick up. However, you will have to sit through some painful acting and a lackluster script, so be prepared.

portmoreja9 Brilliant! The way you perceive the movie Depends on what angle you are watching it from, If you are an African American, American, or Hispanic. The black face is funny to the ignorant few who live within the realms of those jokes. The film does a fine tuned job of depicting the consequences of fame without education while maintaining an acute level of entertainment for those who fall victim to the traps of the idiot box. The Minstrel show illustrated the humor that the general Black community would find funny which was fine but I am afraid of how easily deceiving this movie can be to the untrained eye. It is satire, but truth is some people still travel with the suitcase of hate on a flight to nowhere. Society is evolving and mental prematurity is a trait of the dying breed. The world is too small for the amount of hate that is comically described throughout the movie.