ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1995, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, December 2, 1995 TAG: 9512030013
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 12 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: KATHERINE REED STAFF WRITER
No, the previews aren't misleading: ``White Man's Burden'' is about a society in which the dominant culture is black and the underclass is solidly white.
That is, it puts the shoe on the other foot.
Then it kicks you in the head with it. Repeatedly.
Director-writer Desmond Nakano, a Japanese-American, lets you know early on that there will be no gray area in this black-and-white view of America. The first images in the film include trade-film style shots of a candy factory, with black-and-white candies receiving a chocolate coating. A black couple walking a Dalmatian. And Louis Pinnock's battered white pick-up truck making its way through a solidly black, affluent neighborhood.
There are no Asians in this world. No Hispanics. No Arabs. Just blacks, who are rich, and whites, who are poor.
Louis Pinnock is one of the poor. Played by John Travolta, Pinnock has a decent assembly-line job at the candy factory, which is owned by Thaddeus Thomas (Harry Belafonte).
By chance, Pinnock is asked to deliver a package to Thomas' estate. After being let in the front gate, Pinnock loses his bearings looking for the side entrance. He glances up toward a window where Thomas' wife, Megan (Margaret Avery), happens to be standing, getting dressed.
Thaddeus sees Pinnock, who appears to be peeping, and later asks Pinnock's supervisor not to send Louis again with a delivery to the house.
The supervisor, enterprising young man that he is, does one better. He fires Pinnock. Why take chances?
Up against the wall with no new job in sight, and his family now living with his wife's mother, Pinnock loses it. It could happen to anyone. Wouldn't you commit a crime if it represented your family's only chance for survival?
The trouble with boiling things down to basic arguments is this: They're basic arguments. No characters in this film make a case for the gray areas. And the ending of the film is an argument for hopelessness.
Well, thanks. But the rest of us have to live in this world and struggle with the real questions, like: Does welfare contribute to poverty? Should we be dismantling a system of support for people who cannot (or will not) help themselves? Is the middle class shouldering an unfair portion of the burden? Whose job is it to help the poor?
This movie would have had people in the streets, building bonfires out of white people, had it come out sometime in the 1960s. The fact is, we've come a long way from the place where this movie ends its ``discussion.''
It's a relief, in any case, to be able to report that Travolta does not embarrass himself in this movie - not by a longshot. The role of Pinnock offers not one opportunity for Travolta to be funny, cocky, charming or endearingly stupid, as in ``Get Shorty'' and ``Pulp Fiction.'' Still, Pinnock is very human, very hurt; His face looks misshapen even before it takes a beating. The walk, a little wobbly under the weight of so many burdens, is genius.
Belafonte, a bit of a stone face, is just about perfect as Thomas, whose wife tells him with heavy sarcasm in one scene: ``I just love your sensitivity.'' Thank heavens Belafonte has a small emotional range: If he'd dropped so much as one tear in sympathy with poor Pinnock, the movie would go off the gack-meter.
Still, ``White Man's Burden'' is absorbing, and mildly thought provoking. It's not that life is this way, but that it once was; that it still is for some; that others are complacent about it. And that we are still divided about what to do about it.
White Man's Burden ** 1/2
A UGC-Rysher release showing at The Grandin Theatre and Valley View Mall 6. Rated R for strong language and some violence. 90 mins.
LENGTH: Medium: 74 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: John Travolta (left) is an unemployed factory worker andby CNBHarry Belafonte his wealthy former boss in ``White Man's Burden.''
color.