Black
Film
Review by Kam Williams
Joseph
Grant (Toussaint Morrison) was riding in a car with his brother Cole
(Malick Ceesay) and BFF Derek (Geoff Briley) one afternoon when they
suddenly found themselves being tailed by a police cruiser. Although
they hadn't violated any rules of the road, they were inexplicably
pulled over by a couple of overly zealous cops (Addison Pennington
and Matt Cedarberg), ostensibly for merely “driving while black.”
Sitting in the back seat, Cole asked the officers for an explanation
for the stop, if they weren't being profiled. Their response was that
he matched the description of a suspect they were looking for.
After
being asked for his ID and ordered him out of the car, Cole lost his
temper. The next thing you know, he wound up on the ground with a
pistol to his head. And the bigot with a badge in control of whether
he lived or died yelled, “What you looking at boy?” before
callously pulling the trigger.
Witnessing
the senseless shooting of his only brother leaves Joe traumatized and
Derek is understandably shaken, too. But the two have distinctly
different feelings about what to do next.
The
former has no faith in the criminal justice system, given the long
history of police being found not guilty for the deaths of unarmed
African-Americans. So, he would just like to get some guns, recruit
an army, and lead a violent revolution against the U.S.
By
contrast, Derek is interested in mounting a traditional protest, like
a Black Lives Matter march. After all, he has no confidence Joe will
be able to find any followers, especially since blacks are so
brainwashed they mostly kill only other blacks, not whites. The
ensuing debate of how to respond to Cole's untimely demise sits at
the center of Black, a thought-provoking morality play written and
directed by David J. Buchanan.
Besides
the badinage between the buddies, the film intermittently takes a
break from the drama for brief, revealing tete-a-tetes with real-life
black folks about their first encounters in life with the cops. The
heartfelt recollections shared in these mini-documentaries combine to
paint a widespread pattern of discrimination and abuse on the part of
the police.
A
compelling polemic revolving around a grief-stricken sibling's
relentlessly making his case, like a latter-day Nat Turner, for
armed insurrection!
Excellent
(4 stars)
Unrated
Running
time: 80 minutes
Production
Studio: BLACK Productions
Studio:
We-Co Films
To
see a trailer for Black, visit: https://vimeo.com/281669294
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