Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, May 7, 1994                   TAG: 9405070019
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: B-8   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: By MIKE MAYO CORRESPONDENT
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

IT'S A REAL EASY CALL - `THE INKWELL' IS A LOSER

He saw it as a partially autobiographical coming-of-age story about a black teen-ager in the mid-1970s. But director Matty Rich had, as they say, "a different vision." They struggled for control of the project. Rich got the backing of studio executives and won the battle; Ellis had his name removed from the credits and won the war.

"The Inkwell" is such a clumsy comedy that it's embarrassing. It attempts to combine drama, period nostalgia and humor, and fails miserably on all counts. The serious scenes ring false. Several historical details (most obviously in costumes) are flat wrong, and the comic bits are bizarrely overdone. The cast makes Yosemite Sam and Daffy Duck seem restrained and polished.

It's 1976. Troubled young Drew Tate (Larenz Tate, looking for all the world like the sixth member of the Jackson Five) is forced to spend two weeks with his parents (Joe Morton and Suzzanne Douglas) on Martha's Vineyard. They're going to stay on the island at Inkwell Beach with his aunt and uncle (Vanessa Bell Calloway and Glynn Turman) and teen-age cousin Jr. (Duane Martin).

While the grown-ups argue politics - his dad's an ex-Black Panther; his uncle is a conservative with a portrait of Richard Nixon on the wall - Drew falls for a stuck-up local girl (Jada Pinkett) and befriends the young wife (Adrienne-Joi Johnson) of a philandering husband.

A subplot concerning Drew's personal problems and his relationship with a psychologist (Phyllis Yvonne Stickney) is essentially thrown away. The larger disagreements within the family are settled through name-calling fights, and the whole idea of a black community within an isolated white resort is never explored.

Considering the state of the film business today, "The Inkwell" is easily dismissed as yet another low-budget time-waster that has a brief theatrical run on its way to the bottom shelf of the video store. But serious stories about young black characters who are neither victims nor perpetrators of violence are so rare that this disaster is a double shame.

The Inkwell *

A Touchstone release playing at the Valley View Mall 6. 110 min. Rated R for strong language, sexual content.

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