ChanBot i must have seen a different film!!

Matialth Good concept, poorly executed.

Konterr Brilliant and touching

Hadrina The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

luigibigiarelli Hello. I am a fan of Gwyneth Paltrow. Looking at the cast, it seems the Gwyneth has a little part as student in this movie. But I am not able to find her in any scene. Can you please help me to identify her ? Thank You Very Much in advance. Bruno.

SnoopyStyle Director John Singleton is trying to cram every stereotype into this portrait of an American college. Sure the student body can be divided along racial lines and racial tensions. And sure there are rapes in colleges. And hard drinking parties ... And racist security ... And lesbian experimentation. All he needs is some gay guys and he's all set.Kristy Swanson plays the co-ed who falls into some hard partying and gets raped. Although I like her, she's not a versatile actress. If I have any problems, it's Busta Rhymes. He is the biggest ridiculous stereotype in this movie. Singleton is not doing him or himself any favors. The battle between Ice Cube and Michael Rapaport does drive the story in an interesting way. But again, Singleton takes it into the most sensationalized way. This is not a subtle movie. The characters are mostly 2-dimensional. Tyra Banks makes an impassioned plea, but even that seems 2-dimensional. I guess if there are enough 2-d, Singleton hopes it adds up to 3-d.

Nick Zbu Having over fifteen years of space away from this film, watching it again makes me realize how utterly disconnected from reality this film is. The characters are stereotypes, the college campus is nothing like reality, and the whole affair screams 'Do the Right Thing' but without any real understanding about what that really entails. Spike Lee's film had a lot of valid points and understood the nature of racism and portrayed it brilliantly. This film just takes pleasure in reducing everybody to stereotypes, tossing in an education spiel that would make Bill Cosby roll his eyes, and basically just waste the audience's time and money.But it does have value. The movie attempts to portray America as a land seething with anxiety and bitterness over social norms breaking and bursting. But it's a childish movie in that it wants to be revolutionary without really knowing what it's trying to do. Why does rape equal becoming a lesbian? How does being dismissed by a bunch of black men immediately follow into racism? Huh? What is going on in this movie? And we'll never know. Higher Learning is a product of the '90s. If anything, it shows how we cannot judge history while we are living it. It's a bad clone of Do The Right Thing and is ultimately pointless and meaningless. If anything, it serves as a very good warning about moralizing in cinema: you better be damn sure you make something that, even if proved wrong, proves a point. If not, you're just making Sid Davis films with better stock.

TxMike For some reason I thought this was going to be a goofy college movie but it isn't at all. It truly is an ensemble cast with no clear "main character", because the stories involved all of them.Omar Epps is Malik, at college on a partial scholarship as a track athlete. He has a giant chip on his shoulder and has trouble adjusting.Kristy Swanson is the freshman away from home, Kristen Connor, and needing to learn much to cope with this new college life.Michael Rapaport is Remy from Idaho, lonely and easily influenced, and gets pulled into a group of white supremacist skinheads.Jennifer Connelly is Taryn, borderline lesbian and one that identifies with "causes."My favorite is Laurence Fishburne as Political Science Professor Maurice Phipps, very "Morpheus-like" before he became Morpheus in "The Matrix". It was funny hearing him talk to students about "the real world", a term we hear so often in "The Matrix." But in a good way.Among the others in the cast were Ice Cube, Tyra Banks, Cole Hauser, Regina King, and Busta Rhymes.This is not a delicate movie. It has date rape, ethnic struggles, murder, and suicide. But it is a movie that holds your attention.MAJOR SPOILER: This is the movie where Rapaport as Remy wants to be accepted by his skinhead friends and, egged on, he gets a rifle and decides to snipe from a roof top and kill a black person. He ends up killing two students, one of them the girlfriend (Tyra Banks) of Malik. Later, cornered, Remy puts a pistol in his mouth and kills himself.