White Man's Burden is a movie that supports Karl Marx's theory that the clashes of the world have never been about racism, religions, nationalities or any form that they may take. It is the clash of classes. Money talks.This movie plays it the other way around. This time a black guy is turning the life of a white poor guy to a living hell. This time the white guy loses everything he has; his wife, kid, work and ultimately his life! Travolta and Harry Belafonte are just as good as you would expect them. It is again a low budget movie that is great but doesn't have the stupid visual effects that people usually care for more than watching a movie that talks to the mind and the heart.

This is an exceptional and courageous movie which risks offending the majority of the potential audience. The premise is completely straightforward: black people's lives are played by whites, white people's lives are played by blacks. It is otherwise an entirely ordinary kind of drama: A hard working honest blue collar family man, John Travolta, is struggling to support his wife and two children. He happens to inadvertently offend a very wealthy man (Harry Belafonte) with the power to have him instantly dismissed. What follows is a believable catastrophe that might befall a black family. The whites played by blacks) talk as whites tend to do. The blacks (played by whites) behave and are treated as blacks tend to be.What makes the movie stand out is that a white audience could easily watch - not callously but simply as a believable example of the way a black family might get treated. However the fact that the family is played by whites gives the white viewer the instinctive sense that they are being exceptionally roughly treated - that there is something not at all nice going on.If, as surely is the case a white audience feels instinctive revulsion at the harsh treatment of the white family then only one thing follows. That is the uncomfortable realisation that there are dual standards when it comes to race. "White guilt" does not come into it. It is a very rare movie indeed which puts an audience in that very uncomfortable position. Each (white) audience member is thus forced to come to terms with their feeling of discomfort either by acceptance - or some kind of more or less elaborate strategy of denial.It is on the surface a completely uncomplicated and even obvious film (as is its message). Yet the strange misunderstandings seen in the reviews attest to the unpalatability of its message. Even the UK's leading liberal newspaper review gave it the following oddly flat and neutral review which makes no mention of the movie's entire reason for being: "Drama set in an alternative America where black people are members of an elite society and their white counterparts inhabit inner-city ghettos. John Travolta stars as a lowly factory worker who is mistaken for a peeping Tom and beaten by cops, leading him to kidnap a prominent black businessman and demand justice." It does not make saints of an entire race - indeed Travolta's struggle to bring up his family is made more difficult by the drug-dealing (whites playing blacks) low-lifes who are his neighbours. Just that the central character is a good man who only comes to public attention when for the first time in his blameless life he is driven off the rails. Although set in the USA it could have been set in the UK but with a less extreme storyline. The British newspaper review hints that it would also produce discomfort - and denial - there also.

Minor Spoilers On the plus side, it was believable. It had good acting. I especially liked Harry Belafonte getting irate at the inept white cashier for not helping him get robbed by John Travolta. That was a nice touch to add some twisted realism to the movie. I laughed at that one part. But the rest was just so depressing, and that story line (apart from the racial switch) has been done to death. Take Boys in the Hood and switch the white and black people around. There was no real point other than the fact that racism exists in our world and that it's a darned shame people get discriminated against. Really? Wow! Who knew? So if you want to be miserable and your favorite Blues radio station has been taken over by the Dance Mix Syndicate, go rent White Man's Burden. Otherwise, don't.

I really wanted to enjoy this one. I totally respect John Travolta as an actor, but this movie overall was a failure. The only interesting thing I could find about this movie was the turning around of society and putting white people in the streets and in poverty, while black people are the high class, owners and politicians. It's definitely a decent idea for a movie, but you need more than an idea to pull a decent movie off. First of all, was John Travolta trying to sound like some sort of gangster? He didn't sell me at all on his thug act when trying to sound tough. This movie never really picks up out if it's own ideas, and never builds any form of character. It just stays immersed in trying to make it's political statement and keep on base with its agenda. I want to watch a great movie, not one that pushes its politics into my brain. Harry Belafonte didn't impress me much anyways and his performance seemed so dead that he wasn't pleasant to watch at all. I think he was just in this movie because it had a political statement to yell and he's one for yelling those. Nice try boys, but no dice! 4/10