“A black sheriff???” “Hey! It worked in Blazing Saddles!”
After their initial astonishment, the good people of Sherwood finally agreed that
having a black sheriff wasn’t that radical of an idea after all. Well soon
people will also begin questioning the concept of black actors. “A black actor???” I’m serious, in
10-15 years when Morgan Freeman, Denzel Washington, and Vin Diesel (we had the
racial draft and we claimed him as black) are all dead; who will we have left?
Idris Elba is British, so that means he drinks every night and at best he sees
70 years of age because of it. I like Columbus Short from The Losers but his
agent sucks and he’s stuck doing Stomp The Yard 2; and little Will Smith is
just as annoying as his dad was when he was young, so that’s almost a lost
cause. I know I’ve complained about the lack of black talent in Hollywood
before but man, it seems to get worst by the day! Maybe there’s hope in Michael
B. Jordan; you may have noticed him in the found footage thriller Chronicle. He
stars in Fruitvale Station, which is the story of Oscar Grant’s last night on
Earth.
Ryan Coogler, who wrote and directed this moving film,
surrounded himself with some wonderful talent in the form of Forrest
Whittaker(producer), Rachel Morrison (cinematographer), and Oscar winner
Octavia Spencer. Morrison was the cinematographer for Sound of My Voice, one of
my favorites from last year, and she brings that clean and crisp feel this
picture as well. Coogler doesn’t try and do too much in his first feature film,
outside of the little trick he does with cell phone conversation or texts, he
for the most part shoots it straight and lets the story tell itself. Part of
what worries you about these films is that they try too hard to make the
central figure a martyr so to speak, by over exaggerating how good of a person
they really were. So they force in these sappy scenes which are a stretch to
say the least. But Coogler does an excellent job of showing you how Grant is at
a crossroads in his life on this fateful day which doubles as New Year’s Eve
and his mother’s birthday. He for the most part is good person who goes out of
his way to help others and looks after his family and you can see where he got
these qualities from in his day to day interactions with his mother and his
grandmother. But he is also a product of his surroundings which is ghetto Oakland;
leading to some questionable friends and eventually his drug dealing conviction
which landed him in jail at one point.
The movie focuses on the last day Grant was alive and right
off the bat through the eyes of a camera phone it shows you how he was shot by
an officer while being detained. It’s a rather chilling beginning to the movie but
strangely enough, knowing how the movie ends doesn’t in any way take away from
the tension and building sadness that is sure to come. Earlier I alluded to the
fact that Coogler doesn’t try to make Grant more than what he was and this is
shown in the first scene with him and his girlfriend Sophina. They are arguing
over the fact that she caught him cheating on her at some point earlier than
where we meet them but you can see that he is sincere about his desire to
change for the better for both her and their daughter. And as the day goes on
you see him at times being the good friend and father that he can be and then at other times you see the street coming out in him. Everything that happens to him that
day plays a factor in how he winds up being detained by the cops at the end of
the movie and this is key when you are filming a “day in the life” story. You have to make everything relevant otherwise it quickly becomes clear that you are wasting the viewer's time.
Michael B. Jordan’s acting is key to this film working. Because
he brings such a strong and almost understated performance, every scene he has
with Sophina, his daughter, and especially his mother (Octavia Spencer) just
pulls at your heart strings. Speaking of Spencer, she is great as well,
especially in a scene where she is administering tough love to her son. Without
saying a word and more importantly without over doing it, you can see in her
demeanor alone how it’s killing her but at the same time she knows it’s
necessary. Thankfully she does a better job than John Lithgow did at the end of
Harry and the Hendersons “Goodbye, my friend”.
By the end of the movie there literally
wasn’t a dry eye in the house, men AND women were crying. Hopefully Jordan
hooks up with the Ari Gold of Hollywood and continues to get good roles as he
clearly deserves them. I rate this movie as really FRESH and suggest you go see
it.
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