Judas and the Black Messiah (2021)

Kicking off Black History Month, we revisit this historical crime thriller released just a year ago and starring two of today’s most impressive actors, Daniel Kaluuya and Lakeish Stanfield. 

Kaluuya stars as Fred Hampton who was the chairman of the Black Panther Party in Illinois in the late 1960s, mostly around Chicago.  He has made quite the name for himself as an effective Civil Rights leader and as a result, is soon perceived by the FBI at the time as a potential threat.  Stanfield plays Bill O’Neill who is a local Chicagoan recruited by the FBI to infiltrate the local Black Panthers to help take them down.  Of course, O’Neill starts to befriend Hampton and tensions build as both Hampton’s influence grows as do the FBI’s plans to stop him.

Shaka King directs this searing drama which received much acclaim last year along with winning two Oscars including Best Supporting Actor for Daniel Kaluuya.

Host: Geoff Gershon
Producer: Marlene Gershon

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Transcript

JUDAS AND THE BLACK MESSIAH - 2021

Directed by Shaka King (Audio clip)

Starring Daniel Kaluuya, Lakeith Stanfield, Jesse Plemons, Dominique Fishback, Ashton Sanders, Algee Smith, Darrell Britt-Gibson, and Lil Rel Howery

Genre: Historical Drama/Political Thriller

LaKeith Stanfield and Daniel Kaluuya might be the two most versatile if not best actors under 35 right now...just over the past four years, they have given a variety of fantastic performances in several great films in a variety of genres: Sorry to Bother You, Queen & Slim, Widows, Get Out, Uncut Gems, The Photograph, Knives Out...I haven't even seen the TV show “Atlanta” where I hear Stansfield also kills it! These guys are just trading so much heat right now, who knows maybe we could look back on this period 35+ years from now like we remember the '70's with DeNiro, Pacino, and Hoffman. 

I might be sounding a bit hyperbolic but sorry, this film just broke me and their two performances are at the core of what made it so effective...and clearly judging by its title, a hyperbolic reaction was the intention. 😉 Based upon true events and around areas of Chicago I know too well, this film treads seemingly familiar territory that we've seen in other films....great ones including Malcolm X: an underground war being waged by the FBI to take down black activists in the 1960s, this story centers around an FBI informant Bill O'Neal (Stanfield) infiltrating the Chicago chapter of the Black Panther Party to take down their local chairman, Fred Hampton (Kaluuya). We've also seen this kind of the story of a conflicted informant before, but it's told with such passion and clarity by writer/director Shaka King that it feels fresh. 

I would say that one aspect which sets it apart from so many other similar stories is that we actually spend more screentime with and get to know MUCH more about the personal life of the target of the operation - Fred Hampton - than we do about O'Neal who ends up heading security for this local chapter. Kaluuya plays Hampton with a ton of fire and warmth...it's a tricky performance because he has to demonstrate the type of charisma it took to build a local coalition as Hampton did but in several effective scenes with his girlfriend/wife Deborah (also nicely played by Dominique Fishback), we also see how scared he is as she keeps reminding him that he's as much a "poet" as a fighter. (Audio clip) 

And for all of the personal time, we spend with Hampton, we never go home with O'Neal after a rough day of undercover work to see the toll this is taking on him. Honestly for much of the film, it's quite easy to see him as a "Judas" as stated in the title - Stanfield is often playing this character very close to the vest: is he now a true believer in the movement or is he just playing the part so well to keep seeing the spoils of his hard work? Mostly we see this play out during a series of scenes where he meets up with his FBI handler (deftly played by Jesse Plemons) at fancy restaurants exchanging information - Stanfield truly nails these scenes with glances and body language which show a man trapped under several layers of deception. He never takes it to that movie trope moment of just declaring "I want out!!" as we've seen in so many prior movies about undercover agents...because he never has to, the truth is a lot more complicated than wanting out or not, we see it all on Stanfield's face (Audio clip) 

And it all leads to a pretty intense and gut-wrenching final half-hour as we see all the walls closing on in on these individuals – director Shaka King wrings all of the tension he can out of these scenes without straying from the personalities of everyone involved so it never feels like manufactured "suspense." The actual moment when this betrayal reaches its logical conclusion is mostly spent close-up on the face of someone else in another room...and it's a genuine gut-punch. 😮

Best Needledrop (best song cue or score used throughout the runtime of the film): 

Though this film is filled with some very good period music throughout, far be it from me to disagree with the Academy.  There’s a song which plays at the end of the movie which won the Oscar last year for Best Original Song – it’s called “Fight For You” and it’s from young R&B singer Gabriella Sarmiento Wilson known professionally as H.E.R.  H.E.R. by the way is an anagram which stands for “Having Everything Revealed” and she started out just about five years ago and released her first album, “Back of My Mind” in 2021.  H.E.R. hails from California and at the age of 24 achieved the rare feat of winning both her Oscar for this song and winning the Grammy for Best Song for a different song, “I Can’t Breathe” all within the same year – clearly she’s a talent to watch!

And she has a nice sound – most of her songs tend to be ballads though I wouldn’t call her song for ‘Judas a ballad, it’s more mid-tempo and has a nice retro groove playing throughout with horns and light percussion.  For an emotional tribute to a slain civil rights leader (Fred Hampton in this case), it’s quite effective but also quite catchy. (Audio clip)

Wasted Talent (most under-utilized talent involved with film): 

Small quibble here but Kaluuya and Stanfield are CLEARLY the co-leads for this film – the title even says as much – as they are playing the LEAD characters for this story.  Then WHY were they both nominated for “Best Supporting Actor” last year?  Clearly, this was the decision of Warner Bros the studio behind this film and we have seen this kind of thing before – a studio will often push an actor for a category that they have a better chance of competing in.  And I would gather you could say that this strategy worked as Daniel Kaluuya DID deservedly win the Oscar last year for Best Supporting Actor….I mean hey an Oscar is an Oscar right??

But for me…in a perfect world…..I would have rather seen both Kaluuya win Best Actor and from a strategic standpoint, Stanfield would have had a much better chance of winning Best Supporting Actor as a result – if the studio didn’t have them competing in the same category, they could have BOTH been winners as they BOTH gave great performances.   Yes this is a nitpick as this is more of a case of wasted recognition than wasted talent. (Audio clip) 

Trailer Moment (scene or moment that best describes this movie): 

This was a very tough choice among a few sequences where we watch Fred Hampton makes a rousing speech – the one that gets me most is about 2/3 of the way through the movie after Fred has recently been released from prison, he had been incarcerated for several months for stealing $71 of ice cream bars….that was all the local police could get on him as this incident was actually related to Hampton’s efforts with the Rainbow Coalition to provide food to various poor neighborhoods around Chicago….yes including ice cream.

 This speech is what I would call the “Chairman Fred” speech as they have signed up in the auditorium stating “Welcome Home Chairman Fred.”  And the difference between this speech and previous ones is quite stark: the crowd is much larger and the environment is much more fiery…..and for good reason.  Over the past several months, Hampton has been incarcerated for flimsy reasons and while he was in jail, a Black Panther headquarters was blown up by local law enforcement ending a nasty standoff, and…one of his best friends in the party just died under mysterious circumstances after being moved from one hospital to another, recovering from his injuries from the said standoff.  

 Fred is justifiably angry and is urging for revolution and ironically, this very effective speech is being delivered with the backdrop that we know the walls are starting to close in on him – O’Neal has sadly brokered a deal with the FBI that could possibly result in Hampton being “neutralized” by the FBI and we can also now see that FBI personnel have now infiltrated this very gathering INCLUDING the FBI lead investigator played by Jesse Plemons who is pretending to be part of the fired-up crowd as Stanfield’s O’Neal spots him across the room.  We also see close-ups of Deborah, now several months pregnant cheering her husband on but also looking increasingly terrified as she realizes that with this speech, he’s WAY past being considered a “poet.”  The speech itself is enough to make this a memorable scene but also seeing all of the key players in this story reacting to it takes it to the next level….and it goes without saying that Kaluuya really brings the heat! (Audio clip) 

MVP (person or people most responsible for the success of this film): 

This is such a confidently made film and apparently, it's only the second feature from King who had mostly been directing TV over the past eight years.  He managed to direct a searing historical drama which also works very well as a tense undercover thriller in the vein of Deep Cover, The Departed, or Donnie Brasco the latter of which was also based on true events.   And at a tight 126 minutes, the narrative of this thing MOVES very well while never giving short shrift to historical events nor the key players involved.   And King achieves a nice balance of building up the stories of both Hampton and O’Neill concurrently in a way that I have not often seen for undercover thrillers like this – we’re meant to empathize with BOTH of these guys even though only one of them is the “Judas” of this story as the title tells us.  For directing what I consider to be the best historical drama of the past several years – Shaka King is your clear-cut MVP.  (Audio clip) 

Final Rating: 5 stars out of 5

Even though it was technically released in 2021, Judas and the Black Messiach was eligible for awards consideration for 2020 – as it stands right now, I would consider it to be the best film of 2020 OR 2021, though I still have some 2021 films to catch up on.  I look forward to seeing what King does next and I'm pretty much all-in with Stanfield and Kaluuya at this point.

Streaming on HBO Max

And that ends another TREACHEROUS review

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Host: Geoff Gershon
Producer: Marlene Gershon

https://livingforthecinema.com/

#livingforthecinema #moviereviews #judasandtheblackmessiah  #danielkaluuya #lakeithhstanfield #blackpanther #fredhampton #shakaking #HER #H.E.R. #civilrights #blackhistorymonth #bestsupportingactor #oscar #1960s #Chicago