A very uneven scattershot ensemble piece on some mutually manipulative interactions along NYC's racial faultlines, Black and White is undercut by its pseudo-documentary looseness, but kept afloat by a sprinkling of compelling moments and performances and the intrinsic interest of the subject matter. Bijou Phillips is watchably annoying as the leader of a pack of white schoolgirl wannabe-niggas, and Brooke Shields and Robert Downey Jr. are similarly good as a similarly shallow wife-husband documentary team. Power is impressive as the Harlem hotshot Rich Bower, and Ben Stiller oozes the right notes as a sleazy cop. Claudia Schiffer and Allan Houston are predictably more amateurish, but since the movie's pessimistic point is its people's common vapid amoral self-interest, their flatness seems apropos. Mike Tyson's few meaty minutes are almost worth the price of admission. Black and White is enjoyable without being likable, and seems to know it, carelessly offering up its pretty people for our consumption.