Rotten
Were it not for John Travolta's big-hearted portrayal of an unemployed white factory worker driven to commit a desperate act, the movie would be an emotionally frozen exercise in cautious high-mindedness.
Stephen Holden, New York Times
Overview
The story takes place in alternative America where the blacks are members of social elite, and whites are inhabitants of inner city ghettos. Louis Pinnock is a white worker in a chocolate factory, loving husband and father of two children. While delivering a package for black CEO Thaddeus Thomas, he is mistaken for a voyeur and, as a result, loses his job, gets beaten by black cops and his family gets evicted from their home. Desperate Pinnock takes a gun and kidnaps Thomas, demanding justice.
Director and cast
Critics on Rotten Tomatoes
Top critics, in their words
24%
Tomatometer
Rotten
White Man's Burden spirals into tragedy but never into stirring drama. It stays stuck at the level of noble experiment.
Peter Travers, Rolling Stone
Rotten
Watching this movie is like watching Godfrey Cambridge's racial switcheroo in 1970's Watermelon Man -- without the laughs.
Mike Clark, USA Today
Rotten
A ham-fisted, under-imagined dialectic on race relations.
Rita Kempley, Washington Post
Rotten
It's undeniably fascinating to watch this hypothetical experiment for a while. But White Man's Burden starts to feel like an only-passable Twilight Zone episode stretched into a full-length movie.
Desson Thomson, Washington Post
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