SunnyHello Nice effects though.

CrawlerChunky In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

AnhartLinkin This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

Kimball Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

lustershine-00992 First of all the plot is very simple. And that's a bad thing. It lies somewhere between Romeo and Juliet and the Brazilian Movie "Elite Squad" but with a soap opera tone that won't seduce anyone above 18 years old. I mean... it's VERY simple. Second comes the way it depicts Brussels and it so said gang life. And that's where the racist part comes in. (SPOILER ALERT, but mainly because the plot is sooo simple) The movie depicts a rivalry between two groups of people, one of which is a gang composed of young men and girls from the Congolese neighborhood and the other group is made out of a bunch of friends from a Moroccan neighborhood. The gang is involved in hard drugs dealing, prostitution, guns trafficking... I mean it's a "gang"; they have a mean leader who himself is the puppet of an older duke of the neighborhood. And on the other hand, the Moroccans smoke weed and sometimes steal a handbag but when they do so the movie depicts it as just a game they play in order to challenge one another. Somehow, the feeling you get is that the Black people involved in gangs are really bad people and Moroccans are not-so-bad-people because actually they're more a group-of-friends-rather-than-a-gang and if they get violent it's more because they are trapped in some moral issues. Now if you live in Brussels you would know that in real life it actually is the opposite that is happening: drug dealing and gun trafficking belongs mainly to the Moroccans of Brussels... the latter terrorists attacks on Paris and Brussels are here to prove it. If you go to the Congolese neighborhood of Brussels you will mainly encounter pot heads and nobody would ever sell you a gun. It mostly is a friendly neighborhood. So the question remains: why is the movie called BLACK? And why do they depict reality in such a twisted way. That's when you realize that one of the directors is from Morocco.

excavator Black is a dark and fast paced movie about a black African girl and a Moroccan boy who fall in love. While Romeo and Juliet centered around the love between two people from feuding families, Black turns this lovestory into a very current and global racial issue. In addition, the romanticism of the story is completely overshadowed by the grim reality and violence that come with life in a gang. However, no matter how well executed the movie is, that's it as far as content goes: a love story and violence. The two main characters are the only one's that are slightly developed, the rest are mainly a means to an end story wise. I would definitely recommend this movie because it's a very well made contemporary movie, but if you're expecting elaborate story lines and many in-depth characters, you might not enjoy this one 100%.

Reno Rangan It is a Belgian version of the film adaptation of William Shakespeare's 'Romeo and Juliet'. But it is modernised and gangsterised crime-drama-romance. Sets in the present Brussels about the two black rivalry gangs, their dispute heats up further after discovering one of the members from each gang has fallen in love. In a result an ultimate gang fight undertakes and what comes after that is we all know it.This is the most harsh version of the most beautiful romance tale. I meant not violently, though there are many fight sequences, but sexual contents were too strong. If you are a fan of the original work, then you might dislike the film. Because the portrayal of Juliet was so unpleasant which is realistic to the real underworld. But if you are a welcoming type, for the updated classical stories, then you will appreciate the effort. Yet it is more a gangster film than the romance. That's why the title is very simple that does not reveal about the influence of 'Romeo and Juliet', unless you read it somewhere else like the film's synopsis and trivia or the reviews.Except it sets in the Belgian capital city, the actors, the directors all are not what I expected. I mean it does not give the Dutch/Flemish atmosphere, but like it happens in the middle-east. Since the focus was on the underworld gangs, all the film characters were African immigrants of mostly first and second generation, but the two different regional races, the Moroccans and the black Africans. The first half was not good as I hoped for, but got better after the most waited romance parts were emerged."You were born here, but you're still different. You will always be a foreigner."I did not get the 'Romeo and Juliet' vibe for this film, because it was not actually a revised version, but it roughly borrowed the original plot and nothing much. So you shouldn't anticipate like the story you have known to appear in this film's scenes. From all this, one thing you have to keep in mind before choosing it to watch is that it is not a family or the children friendly film, especially not a date movie.I did not dislike it, but it should have been even better than the overall product. The actors were good and the production quality was much better. The story wise, this film holds no secrets or the twist, because we all know how it begins and ends, but the screen presentation was different with altered scenes and the characters including the locations. So there's more to talk about the filmmaking than the story, except how different it is compared to the Shakespeare's original narrative.This film is one of those where I wanted to like it and rate it better, but I can't for some reasons. The original was a love tragedy that connected with two feuded families, but this film became an ethnic issue that is not welcomed for the present world's condition. For the art of filmmaking, it was a fine piece of work and for the entertainment's sake, it is under acceptable limit, but for the morality what a film teaches these days' youngsters is a mislead.All the above, realism wins, because it looks like inspired by the real gang rivalries around the Brussels. To come to end on this kind of opinion only after I saw the film's end report that came before the credits. So it is a good film, well, mostly decent, that's what I think, but opinions differ from person to person. I am not suggesting it, but you may try it to learn what's yours. And finally the end credit song was good.6½/10

Ruben Mooijman 'Yes, I read books by Shakespeare', says a young gang member jokingly when he is interrogated by the police. Without doubt, this scene in 'Black' is meant as a little innuendo. The film is the latest cinematographic adaptation of Shakespeare's play 'Romeo and Juliet'.'Black' is set in Brussels, where territories are divided between Moroccan street gangs and rival gangs of black Africans. When Moroccan teenager Marwan is waiting in the police station after having been arrested for theft, he meets the pretty African girl Mavela, who is caught for the same reason. They exchange telephone numbers, and start an affair. Because they are members of different gangs, this is enough reason for an exchange of violent attacks by the gangs. Several girls are gang raped or forced to participate in holdups, the boys organize gang fights.The film is very fast-paced and dynamic, capturing the inner city gang life with dark, sinister images and impressive establishing shots, making Brussels look like an urban jungle not much different from the Bronx or Compton.But beneath this succession of beautiful shots, there is not much substance. The screenplay doesn't contain much suspense because everyone knows the Romeo and Juliet storyline. The dialogue consists mostly of four letter words. The characters are mostly one-dimensional. All white cops are sadistic racists, all black men are heartless macho's, all girls are sexy and submissive. The film makers miss the opportunity to develop interesting characters, like Mina, a policewoman of Moroccan descent. We never learn how she copes with being hated by members of her own ethnic group.In view of the Paris attacks of November 13th, the film has an interesting extra dimension. The Moroccan street gang is named '1080', which is the zip code for Molenbeek, the quarter in Brussels where the atrocities were being prepared and planned. You can't help but think that Marwan could just as well have been one of the attackers.Another interesting thing are the subtle references to Belgian linguistic squabbles. From time to time, Marwan and Mavela switch from French to Dutch, but purely in a mocking way. They hate the Flemish policemen who address them in Dutch, and when Marwan tells his imprisoned brother that he wants to start a legitimate garage business, he is accused of being 'Flemish'. Knowing that both directors are from Flanders, this is a nice pun.