Unorthodox in its point of view but dogmatic in its presentation thereof, Just Another Girl on the I.R.T. is a bit of a mixed bag. Writer/director/producer Leslie Harris injects the gangsta-centric world of early-'90s African-American cinema with an all-too-rare depiction of an uncompromising young black woman. Lead actress Ariyan Johnson is a forceful screen presence who brings her mercurial character vividly to life, while the supporting players, though sometimes amateurish, help establish a nicely detailed social world for Johnson's Chantel to inhabit. The film works best in its slice-of-life early scenes, especially those involving Chantel's interactions with her friends and parents. These sequences establish the pressures and pleasures of a typical urban black girl with easy humor and unselfconscious drama. The relationships between Chantel and her competing suitors are nicely played out, while the party scenes are stylishly shot and there's plenty of believable chemistry between the protagonist and her girlfriends. Unfortunately, though, Harris doesn't integrate her sermons about the issues facing African-American girls very well into her dialogue or story line. A scene involving snooty white customers talking down to Chantel at work is amusing though too broadly written, while a confrontation between Chantel and a history teacher, whose lesson about the Holocaust strikes her as irrelevant, seems stagy and stiff -- designed to make a point rather than tell a story. These scenes, plus the sudden plot twists of the film's climax and its too-tidy epilogue, may leave audiences with a negative impression of a film with many fine qualities and well-played scenes.