Movie Breakdown: Judas And The Black Messiah

Pre-Screening Stance:

Daniel Kaluuya and LaKeith Stanfield are two of my favorite actors these days, so I’m more than ready to see them together in Judas And The Black Messiah.

Post-Screening Ramble:

Judas And The Black Messiah is a hell of a film. Based on true events, it highlights two men. One is Fred Hampton (Daniel Kaluuya), the chairman of the Black Panther Party in Chicago in the late 60s, and the other is Bill O’Neal (LaKeith Stanfield), a car thief turned FBI informant who infiltrates Hampton’s inner circle. The two, frankly, couldn’t be more different – Hampton is driven to give, to unite and to lift others up, and O’Neal is geared to survive and to watch out for himself. Hampton is also resolute in his goals, and O’Neal slides from side to side based on which one will benefit him more – stepping up for Hampton and the BPP earns him a bump in status, and reporting insider information to his FBI handler, Roy Mitchell (Jesse Plemons), means more cash in his pocket. So yeah, there’s a reason the film is called Judas And The Black Messiah.

This isn’t just Hampton & O’Neal’s film though, there’s a good look at the awful actions of cops and FBI agents during the time, the organizations that made up the Rainbow Coalition, and the various types of men and women that were members of the BPP. It’s – unfortunately – hyper relevant content and I found that it was many of these smaller moments that stuck with me long after the credits had rolled. Kudos to writer/director Shaka King for figuring out a way to spotlight more than towering performances by Kaluuya and Stanfield. He could have easily leaned solely on his stars, but he gets in plenty of timely insight and it bumps his film up a notch.

You should definitely watch the very sharp and compelling Judas And The Black Messiah when it hits HBO Max this Friday.

One Last Thought:

Martin Sheen is made up in this to look like J. Edgar Hoover, and it doesn’t really quite work – mainly because the heavy prosthetics just don’t match the raw aesthetic that drives the film. It’s also kind of weird that Sheen was cast at all, as his screen time is very minimal.