Themes: Race Relations, Miscarriage of Justice, Class Differences
Main Cast: John Travolta, Harry Belafonte, Kelly Lynch, Margaret Avery, Tom Bower
Release Year: 1995
Country: US
Run Time: 89 minutes
MPAA Rating: R
Plot
From director-writer Desmond Nakano comes this unusual role-reversal picture examining racism from a different perspective. Louis Pinnock (John Travolta) is a semi-literate worker in a chocolate candy factory. One day he makes a delivery to the mansion of wealthy Thaddeus Thomas (Harry Belafonte). He is noticed while he is unintentionally looking up at Thomas' wife, Megan (Margaret Avery), while she is undressing in an open window. Thomas makes sure that Pinnock is fired for this innocent indiscretion despite his years of reliable performance at the factory. Some time later, unemployed and destitute, Pinnock and his wife Marsha (Kelly Lynch) and children are evicted roughly from their home by police officers. Marsha's mother (Carrie Snodgress) takes in her daughter and grandchildren, but she won't let Pinnock stay. Police officers beat up Pinnock one day because, they say, he fits the description of a criminal suspect. Finally, Pinnock goes to Thomas's house to get an explanation for his firing, but Thomas doesn't remember the incident. Pinnock takes Thomas hostage and demands he be paid for all the hours of work he has missed. In this film, all the authority figures and wealthy people are black, and Pinnock is a member of a poor white underclass. ~ Michael Betzold, All Movie Guide
White Man's Burden is a 1995dramatic film about racism in an alternative America where Black and WhiteAmericans have reversed cultural roles.
The film revolves around Louis Pinnock a White factory worker (John Travolta), who kidnaps Thaddeus Thomas, a Black factory owner (Harry Belafonte) who fired him over a perceived slight.
Tagline:Two men at odds in a world turned upside down.
Storyline
Louis Pinnock (John Travolta) is a struggling urban factory worker, who often gets into heated arguments with his wife. In this alternative reality it is a large underclass of white Americans who are forced to live in rundown, crime infested ghettos and face prejudice from the broader society while the vast majority of African Americans live in the comfortable middle or upper class.
In an effort to earn more money to support his family, Pinnock takes a second job delivering packages to successful CEO Thaddeus Thomas (Harry Belafonte). After Pinnock accidentally sees Thomas's wife coming out of the shower, he is subsequently fired, beaten up by the police and forced to watch his family become evicted. In a radical quest for justice, Pinnock kidnaps Thomas, which forces the two men to bond, as well as argue over race relations and the roots of social inequitalty.
