On board for the ride is an aggregate group emblematic of the black male body politic. There's a hyper-masculine man (Andre Braugher), two openly gay men (Isaiah Washington, Harry Lennix), a biracial police officer who identifies as black (Roger Guenveur Smith), a gang-banger turned community activist (Gabriel Casseus), a bright-eyed college student (Hill Harper), a wise, wisdom-spouting elder (Ossie Davis), a verbose fatherly figure (Charles S. Dutton) and an acerbic Republican (Wendell Pierce).

As the bus chugs along, a budding filmmaker (the college student) asks each man why he is going. Everyone tends to overstate his case. For the most of the film, no one talks--they preach long soliloquies about how rough it is to be a black man in America.

But given the film's sincerity, that's fine. What distinguishes the film is its earnestness. So what if the writer and director overreached by touching on so many subjects that it loses some of its intended potency? So what if irritating harmonica music comes on every time Ossie Davis starts talking? So what if you hear “just let him be” enough times to make your head ache? More diverse images of black men on celluloid you won't find anywhere. Equally heroic is that the film was financed by 15 black men (including Danny Glover, Will Smith and Johnnie Cochran) and featured a soundtrack full of black men, most notably Michael Jackson and Babyface.