Michael Elliott
Senior HTF Member
This Sundance favorite seemed to get a wider release over the weekend and I caught a matinee on Friday. I'm not going to call this a great movie as I think there's a bit too much hype around it but it's certainly worth watching and still extremely good.
I wasn't overly familiar with the actual case so this movie was introducing me to a lot of it. As I've said countless times, I don't go to a movie expecting a documentary so I'm sure many things were changed up for a dramatic purpose. Still, the story of a dead beat trying to go straight but having a head-scratching event with a cop and a gun made for some great drama. The film is 100% depressing from the word go but director Ryan Coogler and star Michael B. Jordon do excellent work throughout. The film really doesn't have a political or racial message beating you over the head, which was a good thing, although I do admit that I got quite nervous watching the film fearing something was going to happen as the crowd started to get pretty worked up at the end.
*** 1/2 (out of 4)
I wasn't overly familiar with the actual case so this movie was introducing me to a lot of it. As I've said countless times, I don't go to a movie expecting a documentary so I'm sure many things were changed up for a dramatic purpose. Still, the story of a dead beat trying to go straight but having a head-scratching event with a cop and a gun made for some great drama. The film is 100% depressing from the word go but director Ryan Coogler and star Michael B. Jordon do excellent work throughout. The film really doesn't have a political or racial message beating you over the head, which was a good thing, although I do admit that I got quite nervous watching the film fearing something was going to happen as the crowd started to get pretty worked up at the end.
*** 1/2 (out of 4)