THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, January 14, 1995 TAG: 9501140025
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E9 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MAL VINCENT, MOVIE CRITIC
LENGTH: Medium: 84 lines
IN THE FINAL moment of John Singleton's movie about racial and social tensions on a fictional college campus, the word ``Unlearn'' flashes across the screen while the national anthem is played. Singleton, who is making a comeback after the disastrous ``Poetic Justice,'' does show a great deal that should be unlearned.
In ``Higher Learning,'' he shows us a campus in which everyone chooses sides. He asks us to believe that this college campus is a microcosm of American life in general. His film, in spite of facile stereotypes and an action movie grand finale, is both powerful and disturbing. It is often immature and sometimes sloppy in its plotting, but it is nonetheless worth seeing because of the subjects it tackles.
What other current movie dares to comment on racial dissension, date rape, sexual minorities, the plight of scholarship athletes and neo-Nazis? There are enough messages here to fill a dozen movies. Along the way Singleton, who wrote as well as directed, urges his viewers to do everything from studying to using condoms. For moments at a time, he forgets his plot and just delivers mini-sermons.
Overall, though, he makes a heartfelt and obviously sincere plea for understanding and compassion. The movie's heart is in the right place and that, in itself, raises it above, way above, lesser films.
The film centers on three characters and three separate plots. First, given the most screen time, is Malik, a black scholarship student who whines a great deal about the fact that he has only a partial scholarship and feels he is just a ``horse'' hired to run on the track. Malik, played by Omar Epps, falls in love with a sensible track runner (played by model Tyra Banks) who urges him to take advantage of the situation by getting an education.
The second main character is a sheltered girl named Kristen, who grew up near Disneyland and has apparently never been around people from other races. She is played by Kristy Swanson (who hasn't fared too well with such ill-fated star vehicles as ``Buffy, the Vampire Killer'' and ``The Chase''). She is better here. Her troubles, too, are many. First she's date raped by a boy who refuses to use a condom. Then she must decide whether to succumb to the teasing temptations of Jennifer Connelly, who plays a women's activist leader.
Third, and most interesting is a good performance from Michael Rapaport as Remy, a lonely outsider from Idaho who joins the local Nazi skinheads. Singleton's surprising compassion for the character of Remy and his progressive madness most clearly demonstrates that he wants to keep the film balanced on all levels.
But it comes close to becoming just another action film in its last reel when a sniper attacks the campus.
It is hard for the film to condemn violence and preach for togetherness after it has made violence look so necessary and exciting.
Singleton, at 23, was the youngest person ever nominated for a directing Oscar. The honor was well deserved, for the street drama ``Boyz N the Hood,'' a film that remains the best depiction of the trauma of the inner city. Singleton obviously is not as comfortable with the college campus. Many of his students seem to be closer to the rowdies of the streets than to average college students.
Ironically, Laurence Fishburne, the most veteran of the actors, turns in the most mannered performance, as a professor who takes no guff from his students. It is he, though, who mouths what is obviously Singleton's message to his audience: ``Don't expect to be treated special because you're white. Don't expect to be treated special because you're black.''
``Higher Learning'' is an important and ultimately disturbing film when it is not melodramatic. The effort is an audacious and ambitious one that demands to be seen - and debated. MEMO: MOVIE REVIEW
``Higher Learning''
Cast: Omar Epps, Kristy Swanson, Michael Rapaport, Ice Cube, Laurence
Fishburne, Jennifer Connelly, Tyra Banks
Director and Screenplay: John Singleton
MPAA rating: R (language, violence, sexual situations)
Mal's rating: three stars
Locations: Military Circle, R/C Main Gate in Norfolk, Kempsriver
Crossing, Lynnhaven, Pembroke in Virginia Beach. ILLUSTRATION: COLUMBIA photo
Omar Epps, left, and Ice Cube are caught up in social turmoil at
Columbus University in ``Higher Learning.''
by CNB