Judas and the Black Messiah - Review

 

Judas and the Black Messiah is a film that I was all kinds of excited to see. You see, as a fan of the original Black Panthers, it’s always kind of irked me that in order to find out more about them, I had to do my own research, seeing as in the American school system, the Panthers were either never discussed or if they were discussed, it was in a negative context; a sin that’s still far from being corrected.

 

Well, this film from producers Ryan Coogler and Charles D. King and co-writer/director Shaka King (in his directorial debut) seeks to do its part in correcting that sin. Our story: a petty criminal named William O’Neal (Lakeith Stanfield) is arrested for attempting to steal a car while posing as a federal officer. He is offered a choice: he could either go to prison for six years or he could serve as an FBI informant with the singular goal of posing as a new recruit for the Illinois chapter of the Black Panther Party and get close to Daniel Kaluuya as chairman Fred Hampton, an enigmatic young man who’s been making headway in uniting the Panthers with local black gangs, Puerto Rican gangs, and even young white supremacist gangs to form the famed Rainbow Coalition.

 

I’ll preface the rest of my review by saying that this is definitely a well-made movie. The cinematography by DP Sean Bobbit (12 Years a Slave, Widows) appropriately grey and high-contrast, Mark Isham and Craig Harris’s score expertly moves between jazz and emotional orchestral cues when the situation calls for it, and of course, the performances are amazing. Daniel Kaluuya of course steals the show as Hampton, appropriately playing up the charisma but also the pathos as well. Lakeith Stanfield is great as O’Neal, imbuing him with enough sneakiness but also with a tinge of sympathy as well. Plemons and Martin Sheen are both despicable as Agent Mitchell and director J. Edgar Hoover respectively, the latter coming off as particularly menacing.

 

So, with all that good stuff to say about the film, I still can’t help but point out the fact that this yet another Black struggle film where we lose at the end. Now, anybody who knows the real history of Fred Hampton and the Black Panthers know that this is a particularly tragic story. And while I know that we do need these kinds of films to wake people up, at the same time, I am wondering why the first film about the Black Panthers released by a mainstream studio wasn’t about a victorious moment in the group’s history, and instead focused on a black man being used by the government to take another black man down? I mean, yes, like I said, I know that Fred Hampton (spoiler alert) and another BPP member really were tragically murdered, but that’s not the only noteworthy moment in BPP history to talk about. And while the movie does focus on some of the things the Panthers did – i.e. the Free Breakfast Program and the free Health Clinic – I felt like it all took a backseat and instead focused more on O’Neal acting as a spy for the FBI, and the scenes that focused on that, I really didn’t care about. I really think O’Neal and his stuff should have been a subplot while Hampton and the Panthers should have taken center stage.

 

And yet despite all of that, the scenes focusing on the Panthers did serve their purpose in inspiring me. So, I’m kind of torn on the film. It is a really well-made film…but it’s one of those kinds of well-made films.

 

In other words, yet another Oscar season black struggle movie, chiefly designed to win awards for big corporate studios. But it’s a damn good one and can have a positive adverse effect on you if you just skip past the O’Neal parts.

 

So, that’s what I advise you to do. Watch the film, skip past the William O’Neal/FBI parts, and then go watch the PBS documentary The Black Panthers: The Vanguard of the Revolution.