| RATING: | 40% |
| FORMAT: | DVD |
Sentimental beyond belief, this refuses to analyze any complex issues, especially the essentially racist nature of minstrelsy when practiced by Whites. Unlike Sacher Cohen's Ali G & Borat creations, this is extremely politically simplistic. Yet Larry PARKS is very good in the central role that briefly made his name and the music is very enjoyable.
Al Jolson's gift was in acting out his songs and not just in singing them. He successfully undercuts the simpering sentimentality of much of his material with light humor and spontaneous wit. At his best when connecting with a live audience, his Freudian mammy fixation becomes a plausible entertainment where you stop asking the uncomfortable questions about a grown man seemingly unable to connect with a woman his own age.
This is a White American Dream type musical where success is achieved with little effort or struggle with the result that the characters are correspondingly thinly drawn. High octane acting only partly compensates for the lack of dramatic conflict that was no doubt motivated by the fact that Al Jolson was still alive when the film was made and contributed to its voice. This fear of defaming a living person also may have effected the film's pacing because it is all on a top note - with very little variation for nearly two hours. The downbeat ending is far too little; far too late in the verisimilitude stakes to compensate for the cloying nature of the proceedings.
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