An odd, cynical movie. And it puts a smile on my face.
A young De Niro plays Jon Rubin, a single guy that wants to become a * director. He's been spying on the all the neighbors in the local apartment building, and hatches a plan to make voyeur *, filming the unwitting neighbors. Some smart dialogue and slightly corny humor develop, and a great cast makes it work wonderfully. One of the neighbors is a bearded young white fellow whose liberal politics are in overdrive. He's producing a play called "Be Black, Baby". The flyers promoting the show feature photos he's taken of white folks painted black. Seeing him pose for the camera, you can see that he is proud and excited- apparently he thinks that covering himself in black paint will immediately enable him to completely understand the plight of African Americans. And perhaps help purge whatever latent racism he has within. Nice goals, but a useless strategy. Cracks me up.
Anyway, De Niro's * career doesn't take off. He ends up trading in his camera for, embarrassingly, a television. And he ends up auditioning for Be Black Baby, playing the role of a cop. The play is a "guerrilla theatre" production, with actors interacting with audience, and designed to help races identify with one another. A bit slow at times, but it's pretty intense and realistic.
The end of the play (now being shown on a television that Rubin is watching) shows the theatre troupe storming a middle class apartment complex, a flaccid attempt to spark revolution. The middle class tenants defeat the revolutionaries. Rubin can't take it, pulls out his gun, and fires at the television! His whole existence had been swallowed up by activism, and so he can't handle its failure.
Flash to what is presumably several years later, and Rubin is now married with a kid on the way. His wife and he have inane conversations about his job and the color of the washing machine. His passionate idealism was fleeting, inevitably replaced by his surrender to the rat race.
But then Rubin lights dynamite in his apartment complex, killing many people including his wife. People interviewed outside the wreckage aren't that disturbed, one man lamenting that his wallet was in there. And Rubin approaches the news camera because he wants to say hello to his mother.
My description may make this sound like a dark movie, but (except for the play sequence) it really is a fun offbeat comedy. I even loved the music. Check it out!