Judas and the Black Messiah

             

Shaka King's Judas and the Black Messiah chronicles the FBI's campaign against the Black Panther party and its Chairman, Fred Hampton. The film is logically constructed, well paced, and intelligently directed. J. Edgar Hoover is the film's Great Satan, but the film gives the devil his due in terms of motivation. Like most American films, Judas and the Black Messiah lacks political sophistication. The Panther spout rhetoric trumpeting proletariat revolution, but Marx is never mentioned. The film aligns itself with the Panther's false dichotomy between "freedom fighters" like Che Guevara, Angela Davis, and Huey Newton on the one side and "pigs" like Hoover and Nixon on the other.

Despite its sloganeering, I enjoyed the film. Mark Isham and Craig Harris' stirring symphonic jazz score colors the film's mood without hammering the audience on the head. Daniel Kaluuya is adequate though a little old to be playing Hampton who was only 21 at the time of his death. Kaluuya is good bringing the fire and brimstone of Hampton's speeches, but a little stiff in the more intimate moments. Dominique Fishback is a washout as Hampton's comrade in love. The scenes of their romance are overly rhetorical and dry. 

The film's outstanding performers are LaKeith Stanfield and Jesse Plemons playing, respectively, the snitch and his FBI controller. There is an odd implacability to Plemons' screen persona. He can suggest a void in that big, fleshy head of his or relentless cunning. As in Breaking Bad, he is adept at presenting a friendly and guileless façade masking white racist perfidy. 

Playing a rat is always a choice role for an actor whether it be Victor McLaglen slobbering his way to an Oscar in The Informer or Matt Damon weaseling his way through The Departed. Stanfield memorably channels the paranoia and self-loathing of this film's Judas. If there is a place in the American cinema for Dirty Harry than I see no reason why the Left shouldn't have their mythic icons. Judas and the Black Messiah is simple minded, but it is effective entertainment for those willing to swallow the Panther's mythos.