Judas and the Black Messiah (2021)

Review on Quiet on Set Podcast HERE

Shaka King tackles the story of Fred Hampton, the deputy chairman of the Black Panther Party in this historic Drama-Thriller accurately titled JUDAS AND THE BLACK MESSIAH. The Warner Bros production hits theatres on February 12 (wherever they’re open) and will be available to stream for 30 days on HBO Max. Judas and the Black Messiah focuses mainly on Bill O’Neal, an informant who is forced to work with the FBI to escape from a decade-long prison sentence for impersonating an officer and lifting cars. He soon finds himself in the midst of the already exhausted Civil Rights Movement that suffered the loss of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. just a few years prior.

Daniel Kaluuya (left) as Fred Hampton & Lakeith Stanfield (right) as Bill O’Neal

Lakeith Stanfield plays the conflicted and often helpless Bill O’Neal with phenomenal moral ambiguity as he climbs ranks in the Black Panther Party and thereby increasing his value to the federal agencies. Stanfield has a way of portraying his multilayered and complex character with his eyes alone which does a great deal in humanizing what many simply regard as a sell-out, betrayer, or a Judas. Daniel Kaluuya IS Fred Hampton. He absolutely nails this performance on a level that is on par with Denzel Washington in Spike Lee’s Malcolm X (1992). Hampton is young, driven, and selfless. A man on a mission. King doesn’t shy away from presenting the radical side of Hampton or the Panthers either.

It balances the ambiguity of characters’ intent and results quite effectively. As a result, whatever atrocities and injustices were committed, we have history to look back onto to judge who was right or wrong. Hoover, for instance, played by Martin Sheen, is simply a clear-cut villain from start to finish, which accurately displays this monster of a man. The far more interesting dynamic and dramatic tension comes from Fred and Bill as they grow a bit closer. To its own benefit, the film never falls into traps of sentimentality or overdramatizing events and allows this to be a thriller that has you tensed up even if you are aware of the ultimate devastating outcome of Hampton's way too short a story. Jesse Plemons as FBI agent Roy Mitchell, Bill O’Neal’s contact person, has his own smaller arc in the form reversed version of Bill’s journey.

In addition to a quite successful second feature directing effort, Shaka King furthermore delivers a fantastic original screenplay with Will Berson, Kenneth Lucas, and Keith Lucas as his collaborators. The frequent Steve McQueen collaborator Sean Bobbit (12 Years A Slave/Widows/Shame/Hunger) packs award-worthy shots into the tightly structured narrative and Sam Liscenco’s (Uncut Gems/Good Time/Eight Grade) Production Design reanimates late 60s Chicago in a stunning manner. 

Judas and the Black Messiah doesn’t take your hand along the way and avoids dumbing down characters based on real people for a simpler plot. There might not be a courtroom full of people clapping, seemingly creating a false sense of having overcome a complex and layered issue. (Trial of the Chicago 7). Judas and the Black Messiah, on the contrary, packs a devastating real ending after Fred’s already exasperating assassination that left me speechless and depleted.

Daniel Kaluuya (top) as Fred Hampton & Lakeith Stanfield (center) as Bill O’Neal during a powerful speech

Shaka King’s Judas and the Black Messiah packs the best performances from both Stanfield and especially Kaluuya in addition to being a thrilling portrayal and humanization of an iconic figure from the Civil Rights movement. Additionally, it’s a dire reminder of the countless criminal and ruthless acts committed by the FBI.

4/5

Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn)

Birds of Prey (And The Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) is director Cathy Yan’s first feature-length debut and Margot Robbie’s return to Cupic Of Crime herself, Harley Quinn. The film takes place in the loosely connected DC cinematic universe in which the critical flop Suicide Squad introduced Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn. This is really her film and even though the titular team of Birds of Prey was the advertised focus of the movie the majority of the runtime is spent with all of these characters either working against or separate from each other. At this point, it should be mentioned that if you want to go into this film without knowing anything about the plot, be warned, there might be slight spoilers ahead.

Alongside Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn, there are the three members of the Birds of Prey with Mary Elizabeth Winstead as Huntress, Jurnee Smollett-Bell as Dinah Lance/Black Canary and Rosie Perez as Det. Rene Montaya. Although as mentioned before, there’s not a lot of teaming up in this film. It reminded me of Deadpool 2 and that brief fake-out X-Force team-up. X-Force (and the Electrifying Vanishing of a Brad Pitt cameo). Birds of Prey shares quite a few things with the plot and character of the second Deadpool installment. The often unreliable narration with frequent time jumps and freeze frame exposition dumps, a kid being hunted that needs protecting, and a group of misfits teaming up. But at least Harley wasn’t as persistent on the pop culture references.

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Margot Robbie’s charismatic performance and the highly stylized and surprisingly violent fight scenes are the most entertaining aspects of the movie. Even though the overused slow-motion speed ramping does become noticing at times. From Harley Quinn’s psychologically unstable perspective we get an unreliable narrator that jumps back and forth in time as a reflection on Quinn’s incapability to focus on telling a story from beginning to end. Or it might be a way to make this rather simple plot appear to be a bit more than just a dragged out MacGuffin chase featuring one-dimensional secondary characters with motivations like ‘oh no don’t kill the neighbor kid’ or ‘revenge’. Even the most interesting character, which was Winstead’s Helena Bertinelli aka Crossbow Killer aka The Huntress, ended up becoming a comic relief character and wasn’t used up to her true potential.

Birds of Prey left a rather underwhelming impression on me. However, I have to say that Ewan McGregor seemed to have had a blast overacting in every scene he was in. It was honestly the most consistently funny thing for me in the film. When it comes to his character Roman Sionis aka Black Mask there’s not much to mention other than a statement I have previously made about the poking fun at stereotypical movie tropes: just because you acknowledge that your writing is lazy and bad doesn’t make it funny or original.

Child actors are a pet peeve of mine. It wasn’t just the scenes with Ella Jay Basco’s Cassandra Cain that fell flat most of the time. There’s a scene with Ewan McGregor in which his insanity is supposed to be showcased, but all it made me do is cringe and laugh because it was so awkward and misplaced. For Cassandra Cain, the laughable over-the-top acting isn’t an option because her role is to ground Harley and everyone else and be the audiences’ vessel to sanity. But her acting is just straight-up bad and took me out of the story multiple times.

The story goes the way you expect a story like this to go and although I enjoyed the explosion of colors with green and pink everywhere the tonal inconsistencies were too frequent to turn a blind eye.

Should I watch this? If you are been entertained by the likes of Deadpool or got a least a pinch of enjoyment out of Suicide Squad there’s a good chance you are going to enjoy returning to Robbie’s portrayal of Harls. If you, however, disliked the above-mentioned movies I’d suggest skipping this one. It’s fun, dumb and entertaining.

★★☆☆☆

Birds of Prey ranks somewhere in the middle of the post-Nolan Dark Knight trilogy DC movie universe. Most performances are decent at best and the predictable and formulaic plot renders the movie forgettable.

Swiss Release Date: 06.02.2020

Film data: Director: Cathy Yan - Writer: Christina Hodson - Cast: Margot Robbie, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Ewan McGregor, Jurnee Smollett-Bell, Derek Wilson, Steven Williams, Chris Messina, Charlene Amoia, Rosie Perez, Ali Wong - USA - 109’

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