Note: The writer of this review has followed Judas and the black Messiah on a digital screen from home. Before making the decision to see it – or any other film – in a cinema, please consider the health risks involved. There it is an interview with scientific experts.
It is difficult to exaggerate the cultural riots of the late 1960s. Americans had a small taste of the political chaos of the era in 2020, but for many, this experience was mitigated by the dissociative effect of viewing life unfolding on a smartphone screen. And, in addition, the events continue. The unrest of the 1960s was sustained, organized, and direct, and groups such as the Black Panthers, with their commitment to solidarity and mutual aid, posed a tangible threat to white supremacy in this country – to white supremacy in the form of the FBI. put an end to the revolution before it could really begin.
As for the telling of this story, Judas and the black Messiah it is relatively simple. It is framed by the familiar device of a character giving an interview and is anchored by that most important human experience: a love story. Director Shaka King takes a novelistic approach to the material, focusing less on the relationship between the two characters in the title and more on what was happening in Chicago when FBI informant William O’Neill (LaKeith Stanfield) infiltrated Illinois. Black Panther Party since 1968. Those who hope for a climate confrontation between the main actors of the film will not find this here, because, well, it did not come down like that in real life. But there is still a lot of dramatic friction to be found.
As the president of the Illinois party, Fred Hampton, Daniel Kaluuya is the sun around which everything else enters. Judas and the black Messiah spins. Hampton recruits new members, unites warrior factions, and with his radical charisma and platform, scares bejesus of FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover (Martin Sheen). The activist really comes to life in front of a crowd as Kaluuya channels the hot intensity he brought to Steve McQueen Widows to more just but equally electrifying purposes. However, even offstage, Hampton, strong, rarely lets his guard down, which makes his connection with his boyfriend and comrade-in-arms Deborah (Dominique Fishback) so special. He knows how to reach him as he reaches an audience, and Fishback’s scientific gentleness balances Kaluuya’s firm strength with the moving effect.
Compared to Hampton, O’Neill is a rat going through a burning maze, desperate, scary and eternally reactive. Stanfield’s performance is just as evasive. On the one hand, Bill is a perfect liar, who is able to make his way into Hampton’s inner circle without breaking his character. On the other hand, he is a squirrel, exciting and unable to hide his emotions when put under intense pressure. But while Stanfield and Kaluuya offer two compelling – and contrasting – shows, Judas and the black Messiah it is an ensemble piece without weak links, but only secret weapons.
The opposite physicality of the pieces in the film is just one way King looks rather than says. At one point, a cut from O’Neill’s dark, cramped room to the suburban plush digs of his FBI leader Roy Mitchell (Jesse Plemons) demonstrates their power imbalance without a line of dialogue. (Plemons is a coup in a film full of them, a perfect representation of the true face of white supremacy.) As Mitchell did to O’Neill, the information is withheld from the characters and distributed in fragments. And as the tension grows, so does the impression that a trap is being built and placed somewhere out of sight. It is an elegant and subtle dramatization of institutional racism and how it works.
King also shows a talent for juxtaposing his transitions between scenes, deploying them to emphasize points and add small moments of ironic humor to this otherwise serious story. (At first, we see archive footage of Hampton talking about the free breakfast for children, before Hoover dramatically declares: “TThe Black Panthers pose the greatest threat to our national security. “Free breakfast! Horror!) His confident direction keeps the camera moving, and the free-jazz score by composers Craig Harris and Mark Isham fits the period and adds more edgy energy to Chicago’s already explosive atmosphere. The windy city featured in this film is not one of the skyscrapers and an extensive lake, but of modest brick dwellings, dirty back alleys and industrial yards that throw toxic smoke into the air breathed by children living some distance away.
Both Hampton’s son Fred Hampton Jr. and his mother, Deborah Johnson (who later changed her name to Akua Njeri), worked as consultants at Judas and the black Messiah, and the film is certainly an admirable portrait of the Black Panthers. But King and co-writers Will Berson and Keith and Kenneth Lucas (aka the comedy duo The Lucas Brothers) add layers to this already complicated story, extending only the slightest bit of sympathy to O’Neill (and he’s trapped).) and make Mitchell conflicted about his role in Hampton’s eventual murder. Both the militant and humanitarian parts of the Panthers are on display here, and if the Chicago Police Department is described in a vile light, history proves that too. If anything, the fact that this movie feels annoying and relevant 50 years later speaks to how good Fred is. Hampton was. You can kill a person, but you can’t kill an idea.