review for Black Picket Fence on AllMovie

Sergio Goes' Black Picket Fence is a compelling and troubling documentary about life in the projects. The film focuses on aspiring rapper Tislam "Tiz" Milliner of East New York, intimately exploring his relationship with his good friend, Mel, a recently paroled drug dealer. There's a chilling moment in the film when Mel calmly describes a robbery he and Tiz committed that ended badly, with Tiz inadvertently shooting Mel in the back. Goes succeeds in giving a sense of the numbing prevalence of violence in these lives. Black Picket Fence, shot on grainy DigiBeta video, is a creditable documentary, but it has its flaws. A scene in which an obese black woman, whose identity is never clearly explained, flashes her breasts at the camera and dances suggestively, seems exploitative, in the manner of television's Cops. And while Tiz and Mel are the film's main subjects, there are a couple of fascinating people on the periphery of their lives that demand more screen time. Tiz's manager, Billy Dee, another parolee, speaks compellingly, if hyperbolically, about Tiz's importance to the community, and his responsibility to succeed. The sole female member of Tiz's rap crew, Brina Ellerbe demonstrates exceptional freestyling skills, and keen insight into the unavoidable sexism of her male peers. While Black Picket Fence is consistently interesting, and lends a humanizing depth to cultural stereotypes about inner city life, the film lacks structure. There doesn't seem to be any narrative import to the point at which the story begins and ends. That said, Black Picket Fence is a worthwhile document of a slice of inner-city life.