Vashirdfel Simply A Masterpiece

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Invaderbank The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

Staci Frederick Blistering performances.

Parnia Bamboozled is an incredibly underrated film. It is skillfully directed and performed. The actors are top notch and this movie features some of their absolute best work. Damon Wayans and Tommy Davidson are especially phenomenal; this film showcases some of their deepest and most poignant acting. Despite being mainly a tapper/hoofer and new to acting, Savion Glover brings in the fire and gives a stellar performance. This movie is far ahead if its time and still presents a clear representation of race relations and exploitation especially in entertainment and the workplace, even still today. This film is the best form of satire I've ever seen. There is always something new to discover every time I see it and it never gets old.

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

kclaydawson Yes, Spike Lee is an excellent movie director. So are others. However, he distinguishes himself with depictions of "black" or "colored" Americans being victimized by "white" society. As in his movie "CSA," Lee dredged up the long dead corpse of slavery to remind everyone that racism abounded in America long ago. What he cannot understand is that segregation and slavery were curses on everyone. "Whites" fought a war over it while "blacks" were still selling their brothers and sisters to slave traders in Africa. The NAACP was begun by white people. So, why must he cling to the bitterness of a past that died long ago? Why not discover what America has become? Either Lee failed to understand the message of Bamboozled and CSA,or he must hate his own race. In CSA, he shows an America that never rid itself of slavery, yet still landed a man on the moon, became a global power, and was an economic giant. The only difference between our country and an America where slave-holding was mandatory was the lack of entertainers and sports. Is that what Lee believes about the races? I hate to tell him this, but there are great entertainers and athletes who couldn't't pass as black. In "Bamboozled," blacks betrayed blacks by profiting from insulting racial stereotypes. They made money by using the "N" word in every sentence. One character claimed that saying the "N" word kept his teeth "white." It certainly lined his pockets. It has lined Spike's pockets. too.So, what has Lee accomplished in this movie? I think that once again he has bamboozled us all.

dir_by_ade The film is just utterly amazing. It takes a stark look at the reality of television and how Afro Americans are viewed by way of television, film, and radio. SPIKE LEE's strongest glimpse although filtered through the lens of Satire and that of Ellen Kuras' beautiful lens it works. He brings forth a haunting nightmare of the plight of working in a realm of which you are shut out and useless for others write for you, of you and about you in general. Damon Wayans gives such an amazing performance, of the self hating protagonist that you feel sorry for. The hip hop group Mau Mau's who are highly misguided and take their voice to the furthest lengths. Yet though SPIKE is blamed for his films being too ANGRY, too BLACK, too UNREALISTIC. All false. "Do The Right Thing" was inspired by a real person killed by the police official choke. Even here a scene that seems too far fetched is sadly based in truth as MC Search is the lone survivor which is based on a real incident. Do The Right Thing is held as such an high mark upon cinema, which it deserves along with "Malcolm X." Here he just delivers a powerful voice, message, and an outcry, its just masked and covered in that haunting laughter of Pierre (Damon Wayans).