‘Burning Sands’ Review By Gerald C. Anderson, Sr.
I stumbled across this new Netflix movie, ‘Burning Sands’ today. It started out like a traditional black movie with a couple having sex. For the record, we do more than just have sex. However, I continued watching the movie and thoroughly enjoyed it.
In recent years, fraternity hazing got attention and rightfully so, been banned. This movie follows five young men as they pledge a fraternity. One of them, Zurich (Trevor Jackson) struggles with the code of silence for pledges, his relationship and his school work. You can see that he clearly doesn’t want to continue the process but doesn’t give up. In fact, all of the pledges seem as though they want to give up at one time or another. I mean really, what grown man would allow someone to paddle them on their behind repeatedly just to be associated with a group. I digress.
The movie did well to remove some of the stereotypes for black people. One of the pledges openly admitted, he was a virgin and was waiting to be married. Zurich truly loved his girlfriend. Those two points on their own made me smile. It was comforting seeing a change of how black men are portrayed on film.
Rating
Although, the end of the movie is very predictable, it does keep you captivated. Overall, I was very impressed with it and gave it 5 stars on my Netflix rating.