Rosewood

An explosive look at the effects of mob mentality, John Singleton's Rosewood follows the escalating racial tensions in small-town 1920s Florida, after a white woman claims she's been beaten by a black man. As the town divides and violence takes over, an outsider (Ving Rhames) and a storeowner (Jon Voight) team up to rescue the few survivors. Rosewood is not an easy film to watch, as Singleton doesn't shy away from showing human brutality at its worst. Yet the violence doesn't come off as gratuitous or preachy, since the main characters have some depth. Voight's character, for example, is definitely racist, but his sense of right and wrong overrules his prejudice. Although it could easily have been another black-and-white take on the race issue, Singleton's film is far more complicated. Recommended. (L. Russo)