"Who is Richard Black? Black symbolizes race....
Richard?…well, what's the nickname for Richard?"

First things first. I'm not a huge fan of reality-based TV, be it Survivor or one of its many imitators. If I really wanted to experience a sense of reality, I'd turn off my TV and go outside. Don't get me wrong…I get the occasional chuckle over shows like Blind Date, if only as a guilty pleasure. However, there is a time and a place for shows like that, being "11:30 pm" and "basic cable".

Based on the groan-inducing tagline above, I wasn't expecting much from Knowing Richard Black (2001), a 'feature-length reality film' by Jon Marc Sandifer. Long story short, it's a dressed-up episode of Blind Date with less than half of the comedy, and no clever word balloons.

The plot goes like this: Jon Marc's friend has a guest from West Africa---a woman named Marilyne---who is in town for the week. Apparently, Marilyne has never "experienced" a black man before, whether we're talking about a simple date or a romp between the sheets. Jon Marc makes a promise to his friend that he'll hook up Marilyne with a winner before she heads back home. The catch is, everything you see was filmed as it happened, and all the conversations and situations are completely unscripted.

While it's an interesting and spontaneous idea on paper, it's not really anything special on film. For the entire running time of 76 minutes (which includes a wordy intro by Flavor Flav of Public Enemy, the end credits, and an extra scene at the end), I really felt like I was watching a TV show. To make matters worse, the show wasn't even that good, and I couldn't change the channel.

Maybe I'm being too hard on the overall production, because there were some bright spots. As a host, Jon Marc Sandifer is a pretty charismatic guy…he reminds me of a more low-key version of Don Cheadle, actually. Of course, the overall premise isn't bad either, and it seems like quite a challenge to film all this on the sly. The reactions are genuine, the situations are real, and that's about as much as you can hope for. Sadly, I really couldn't get into this movie, and it really seemed to drag.

Overall, there's not much to say about Knowing Richard Black. It can't really be compared to traditional movies, as it lies more in the category of a documentary. Even so, the general purpose of a documentary is to entertain and to inform the viewer. Knowing Richard Black wasn't terribly entertaining, and it didn't tell me anything about casual relationships that I hadn't seen before. In any case, it's now available on DVD from Image Entertainment, so here's the scoop:

Presented in its original 1.33:1 aspect ratio, the video for Knowing Richard Black isn't half bad. Most of the footage looks good for a low-budget affair, but the overall production is a little gimmicky. There is frequent letterboxing (which seems pointless, in this case), as well as a few split-screen phone conversations which try too hard to be 'high-tech', and come off more like half-baked music video segments. Overall, this wasn't a bad effort, but you won't be blown away.

There wasn't much meat at all to this 'feature-length reality film', and I found the overall production to be pretty lackluster and uninteresting. I didn't really care for any of the characters, and therefore the eventual resolution didn't hold much weight. That isn't to say that Knowing Richard Black won't be able to find an audience, but it definitely wasn't up my alley. The DVD itself is also somewhat lackluster, and even with the low $19.99 retail price, this isn't worth tracking down. Skip It.