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thedullwoodexperiment

~ Viewing movies in a different light

thedullwoodexperiment

Tag Archives: Police shooting

Monsters and Men (2018)

09 Saturday Mar 2019

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Tags

Activism, Anthony Ramos, Drama, John David Washington, Kelvin Harrison Jr, New York, Police shooting, Reinaldo Marcus Green, Review

D: Reinaldo Marcus Green / 96m

Cast: John David Washington, Anthony Ramos, Kelvin Harrison Jr, Chanté Adams, Jasmine Cephas Jones, Nicole Beharie, Rob Morgan, Cara Buono

Manuel “Manny” Ortega (Ramos) is a young man with a family who is trying to make a living in the Bed-Stuy area of New York. He skirts along the edges of the local criminal community, although in  a very minor capacity. While out one night he witnesses six police officers attempting to detain an unarmed black man called Big D. As he films the incident on his mobile phone, the man is shot and killed by one of the officers. In the days that follow, Manny wavers between posting the incident online or keeping quiet. When his home is broken into, Manny suspects the police have done it, and so he uploads the footage. For local police officer Dennis Williams (Washington), his knowledge of the officer involved and the clearcut nature of the killing, causes him to have mixed feelings about the growing outcry at the death of Big D, and his own position as a black police officer. For promising teenage baseball player Zyrick Norris (Harrison Jr), the shooting prompts him into joining a local activist group headed by Zoe (Adams), while putting his professional future on the line…

The debut feature of noted short movie maker Reinaldo Marcus Green, Monsters and Men takes an all too familiar scenario, that of a potentially unlawful killing by police, and instead of focusing on the rights or wrongs of the act itself, examines the wider effects of such an incident on a handful of connected individuals. It’s a deceptively bold approach, and one that allows Green to give his movie a simple yet dramatically daring structure, one that doesn’t provide the viewer with any resolutions or permanent outcomes. Instead, each of the three main characters is left at a pivotal moment in their life, their futures undecided but influenced by the actions that have brought them to these moments. Manny has just started a new job and is in the process of putting his criminal past behind him; releasing the footage will bring him a notoriety he can’t afford. But he’s also proud, and he won’t be intimidated by the attentions of the police, so he posts the footage online, only to find that doing the right thing can come at a price. It’s a bittersweet victory, but one that, surprisingly, still offers hope for Manny and his family.

Dennis is a career police officer, aware that some of his fellow officers aren’t afraid to cross the line, but unwilling to do the same. This brings him into conflict with his friends and colleagues, and facing potential problems from Internal Affairs, but like Manny he has his own personal moral code, and he won’t submit to compromise, even if deep down, he knows he should. Perhaps the most interesting of the three is Zyrick, a teenager on the verge of a lucrative baseball career who discovers a willingness to be politicised when marches and protests are organised in the wake of Big D’s death. Zyrick has the fervour and the commitment of a neophyte, and it’s his nascent moral code that drives the movie’s final third, and finds the character making a choice between baseball and activism that is both powerful and galvanising. The three leads all give tremendous performances, their varied characters providing the viewer with different inroads to different aspects of the story, and their inner conflicts convincingly expressed and portrayed. Along the way, Green avoids any obvious preaching, and keeps things pleasingly realistic, an achievement that highlights just how intelligently handled it all is, and just how good Green is as a writer/director.

Rating: 9/10 – with a growing sense of urgency that’s allowed to unfold at a steady, yet engrossing pace, and photography to match it from DoP Patrick Scola, Monsters and Men is a gritty reminder that some racial tensions may never be resolved; persuasive and effective thanks to the decision to present differing, complex moral attitudes – and not judging any of them – this is a movie that creates its own narrative template, and is a terrific example of purposeful firebrand movie making.

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The Hate U Give (2018)

16 Sunday Dec 2018

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Algee Smith, Amandla Stenberg, Anthony Mackie, Drama, Garden Heights, George Tillman Jr, Literary adaptation, Police shooting, Racism, Regina Hall, Review, Russell Hornsby

D: George Tillman Jr / 128m

Cast: Amandla Stenberg, Regina Hall, Russell Hornsby, Anthony Mackie, Algee Smith, Issa Rae, K.J. Apa, Lamar Johnson, Sabrina Carpenter, Dominique Fishback, Megan Lawless, Common

Starr Carter (Stenberg) is a sixteen year old black girl living in a predominantly black neighbourhood – Garden Heights – but who attends a predominantly white prep school, Williamson. One night, while at a party, she reconnects with a childhood friend, Khalil (Smith). Later, as Khalil takes her home, they’re pulled over by a white police officer, who insists Khalil gets out of the car. When Khalil reaches into the car for a hairbrush, the officer thinks he’s going for a gun, and reacts by shooting Khalil dead. The shooting causes a local outcry, but Starr’s involvement is kept a secret, even from her best friends (Carpenter, Lawless) at Williamson, and her white boyfriend, Chris (Apa). But as racial tensions increase, and Starr is required to testify before a grand jury, matters are further complicated by the attentions of local gang leader, King (Mackie), who doesn’t want Starr saying anything about Khalil selling drugs for him. Torn between keeping quiet and not putting herself or her family at risk, and honouring Khalil’s memory, Starr must find the courage to chart a course that ensures she does the right thing…

A contentious and powerful adaptation of the novel by Angie Thomas, The Hate U Give doesn’t shy away from tackling some pretty serious issues, and does so in spite of its YA backdrop, proving that the genre can address issues beyond dystopian futures and awkward romantic entanglements. And while the continuing effects of cultural and political racism are front and centre, the movie also delves into topics such as social deprivation (Garden Heights isn’t exactly an affluent neighbourhood), peer pressure, police accountability, gang culture, cultural appropriation, and political activism. It’s a heady brew, and as such, a challenge for any one movie to assimilate without running the risk of minimising the impact or importance of any one aspect at the expense of the others. But Audrey Wells’ screenplay is one of the best literary adaptations of recent years, and it addresses each issue succinctly and with a great deal of care, and ensures that the viewer understands the effects that each issue has on the characters. Whether it’s the injustice felt by a community that has already seen too many people die unnecessarily, or Starr’s increasing unhappiness at the way her friends behave as “black” because it’s “cool”, the movie refuses to treat these issues lightly, or inappropriately (as the kids at Williamson do).

With the script locked in, it’s left to the performances to amplify the importance of the issues the movie explores. As Starr, Stenberg gives one of the best performances of the year, courageously tackling her role head on, and always finding the emotional truth in any given scene. It’s such a mature portrayal, so nuanced and impressive, that on the rare occasions Starr isn’t the focus of a scene, you can’t wait to have her back. There’s fine support from Hall and Hornsby, and Smith proves that his break-out performance in Detroit (2017) wasn’t a flash in the pan. Tillman Jr has assembled a powerful, hard-hitting movie, but despite the quality of Wells’ script and the quality of the performances, it’s a movie that is often more effective in its quieter moments than when it seeks to escalate the tensions inherent within it. A protest march that descends into violence feels timid in relation to the emotions it’s engendered, while the sequence where Starr and Seven are trapped in their father’s burning store is over before any real threat to their lives can be allowed to create any tension. Minor bumps in the road such as these, however, do serve to distract from the good work the rest of the movie revels in, and as they come in the last half hour, unfortunately they undermine some of what’s gone before. But even so, this remains an intense and vigorous exploration of issues that rarely get addressed with this much clarity and confidence.

Rating: 8/10 – despite a few narrative leaps and bounds designed to wrap things up more quickly than necessary, and a few soap opera moments that always feel out of place, The Hate U Give is a vivid, potent examination of America’s continuing racial divide; with its superb central performance, and its ability to tackle complex issues without resorting to being dogmatic or condescending, it’s a significant reminder – as if it has to be said – that all lives matter.

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