Product Details

• Actors: Keith David, Ella Joyce, Keith Sweat, Rima Fakih, Tamer Werfali
• Directors: Marc Cayce
• Writers: Marc Cayce
• Producers: Marc Cayce, Al Maddin, Ted Dorsette
• Format: AC-3, Color, Dolby, DVD, Widescreen, NTSC
• Language: English
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: Unrated
• Studio: Code Black Ent
• DVD Release Date: July 25, 2006
• Run Time: 115 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B000FIKFRK
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #31,274 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• For more information about "Forbidden Fruits" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Editorial Reviews

In the spirit of Crash, Forbidden Fruits explores the cultural differences and nuances between different minority groups. Forbidden Fruits is a story about the colliding of three different worlds – African Americans, Chaldean Americans and Arabic Americans. Shawn, a college student from Cleveland, falls in love with a Chaldean girl named Crystal that attends his university in Detroit. Shawn’s Cousin Mark, a local street thug, warns him to leave "those kinds of girls" alone because their families will never permit it to flourish. Forbidden Fruits is a modern day Romeo and Juliet story in which Shawn refuses to abandon his love and instead chooses to hide his romance from those closest to him.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Mr Mingo's review is way off, August 9, 2007

By 

Rochanne Johnson "reshec" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Forbidden Fruits (DVD)

I think this is an excellent movie. I love to see movies were racism is addressed. I think this movie is well worth the buy. And for Mr Mingo that says "Crash" was unworthy of an Oscar. I'm sorry to say that he must live in a fantasy world or you must not be a man of color because racism is not subtle. I am a black woman who has also traveled to other countries and I must say that I experienced racism overseas but not like I experience it here just about everyday. I would say overall they did a good job w/ this movie

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Too PC and Only Unique to MI!, June 1, 2011

By 

Christopher (New Haven, CT) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Forbidden Fruits (DVD)

I have never heard of this film until I saw it on TVOne last night! I figured I'd watch it just to see what it was about. I hear that MI has the largest number od Arabic speakers (probably mainly Lebanese and because Canada is not far away) and of course that would make this story unique to the Detroit area and not so much for the reast of the country.

Every time I see one of these "others don't want to mess with blacks;let's figure out why" films, I always laugh first and then I look at the casting! In Mississippi Masalsa, they made sure they casted African-Americans darker than the chosen Indians. In Bend it Like Beckham, they did the same thing... I notice that when it comes to other "people of color" and their quest to win favor with whites, they make sure that they try to show a clear disctinction even when the lines can become blurred, as in the case of Indians vs. Africans.

In this film, at least there are a few varieties (skin tones) of blacks, buuut there only seems to be two varieties of Arabic speakers - yellow/Asiatic and white-styled! This is what makes it appear as if the two groups are further apart on the race scale than they actually are! In this film, we saw no black Muslims - Nation of Islam and orthodox. We saw no 'black' arab or a "darker" arab. All we saw were people who looked alike, but anyone familiar with arabs knows that they range from jet-black to European white! Given that, how could they just use the Lebanese/Syrian types? Those types are more European in mixture than most others arabs groups, save from Tunisians and northern Algerians.

I just hate casting likes this. It is like making a movie about black/Puerto-Rican tensions when PR's are just light-skinned blacks! This adds up to the usual hot topic of interracial dating. I think a better place for this question would have been to take this movie and film it in an arab country! The results could have been the same! So you have the usual people from opposite groups who want each other and their groups oppose it. On the Arab side, the darker female seem to oppose integration with black more than the lighter ones. Always happens in real life even with hispanics. They are already dark enough and they want to lighten up instead of darken up!

So, they go back and forth with two people from each group dating. They show the arabs terrorizing the blacks and calling them the "N" and the "A" word. The "N" word is, you know, and the "A" word means salve in Arabic. It is similar to being called the "N" word. They also go into the arabs owning all of the package stores and how the blacks want the drinks so badly that they do not care how much they are insulted. All in all, this was pro-Arab propaganda that only has an affect on those who live in MI.

In the end, I did not feel good about the arabs nor the blacks. I am sure that there are arab groups who want to stay away from blacks but given the history or arabs, I always ask can they really NOT mix with blacks? I mean, that is in their system as much as a native-American is in a Mexican! Instead of doing films about why others won't date blacks, they should do one about why others do not have a problem dating whites! Or better yet, how whites don't have much of a problem dating blacks but others do? Now THAT is something to think about!

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Hamhanded, bad directing, bad acting, and just plain bad, September 17, 2011

By 

Bryn Mawrtyr (Dallas, TX) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Forbidden Fruits (DVD)

The reason this movie isn't good isn't because it has a bad message. It has a general message that basically amounts to "Yes, even minorities can be racist, and we should stop that."

This is a good moral, I won't lie. That doesn't mean this is a good movie. It's not.

Terrible, TERRIBLE acting all around. There was one point where a Muslim mother was waving goodbye at her daughter through a glass door, and I honestly couldn't tell if she was glaring at her daughter's friend, or just mildly staring at the window. Other moments had me literally want to look around and see if these actors were reading their lines off of a giant cue card, they were delivered so poorly.

Subtly? What's that? I know some of you want to excuse it with a "sometimes racism is blatant" but you know what? Not to this extent. Within the first half hour of the movie, you have two, maybe THREE actors say right to the screen, "BUT HOW WOULD MY PEOPLE RESPOND TO ME DATING [insert either black or chaldean/arabic race here]? YEAH, THAT'S WHAT I THOUGHT". Within thirty minutes this happens. That's not "real life" that's called "very, very bad writing". Racism is blatant at times, yes. But there's a limit. And the fact that no one can go five minutes without mentioning race or religion (I think back to how every parent couldn't compliment a child of their race without adding religion into it, like "She's a good CHRISTIAN girl,"...with the director oh so subtly "implying with your you in the face with "unlike those filthy MUSLIMS, god I hate them") is...silly, to say the least. These people can't go get some ice cream without reminding the viewer that the their fudge bar reminds them of those disgusting black people.
And the lack of subtly doesn't just go for racism either. You know the rule 'show, don't tell'? It exists for a reason. Do not TELL me your feelings. I am not an idiot. I can read expressions. I can read people. "You know the only reason I hang out with [person] is because he's black/Arab and that pisses my dad off, right?" That is an actual line in this movie. Roll that around in your noggin. I lost count of the number of times characters just flat out said who and what they were ("I'm Chaldean, Catholic, and from the east," a girl said with no prompting whatsoever...just like every single other character would do). People do not do this. People ACT on how they feel, not spout their actions and motives as they are happening. If I'm angry at my father because he said he was going to take me to the movies and then decided not to, I'm not going to tell a friend talking about buying a TV, "By the way, I'm pissed at my father because he lied and take me to the movies like he promised. That's why I'm hanging out with Arabs now. Just so you know."

I'm really surprised by the number of people defending this movie. It's most definitely not deserving of five stars, even as a TV movie.

The overall hamfisted-ness of this movie is almost charming, really. The director clearly has no idea what he's doing, the actors are almost cringe-inducing. At one point my brother came in to watch this movie with me and he and I had a ball laughing at the shoddiness of it all. My brother is 14, with some of the worst taste in movies you can imagine, and he could see this movie for what it was: Entertaining for all the wrong reasons crap.

There's a good movie in this premise, there really is. The idea is that racism affects everyone, regardless of social class, religion, and skin color. That we should try to learn about others and their culture, rather than making assumptions based off of the media and one experience you had before. It is something a bit Michigan specific (shout out to my fellow Michiganders), The movie means well. It just didn't turn out into a great product. I give it an extra star because I had a good time listening to it in the background and laughing at some of the blandest delivery of what was intended to be emotionally charged lines.