Judas and the Black Messiah (2021)

Directed by Shaka King. Starring Daniel Kaluuya, Lakeith Stanfield, Dominique Fishback, Jesse Plemons, Darrell Britt-Gibson, Ashton Sanders, Martin Sheen, Dominique Thorne, Algee Smith, Jermaine Fowler, Lil Rel Howery, Robert Longstreet. [R]

Blistering late-60s dramatization of Chicago Black Panther movement chairman and mouthpiece Fred Hampton (Kaluuya) and his betrayal at the hands of FBI informant Bill O’Neal (Stanfield). Led by Kaaluya’s charismatic controlled-burn performance, the film relies on King’s assured direction and the passion of the players to smooth out the wrinkles of King and Will Berson’s disorganized and overly ambitious script, tackling at least one perspective too many in its mission statement of rewriting “misleading history”; it may have been shrewd to fill out the spectrum with scenes focusing on the sabotage operation strategy of J. Edgar Hoover (Sheen) and the subordinate (Plemons) that’s directing O’Neal, but there’s less balance and insight in those appendages. As for O’Neal’s role and impact, Stanfield may give it his all, but his motivations and background are incomplete, his attitudes and guilt inconclusive. Whether involved in more personal and introspective scenes with girlfriend Deborah Johnson (Fishback) or addressing crowds with his call-to-arms rhetoric, Hampton proves a worthy but flawed subject, which is also a concise way to describe this biopic. Co-produced by Ryan Coogler.

74/100