The film is constantly moving and alert — less a high-stakes game of catand-mouse than a densely layered study of cats, mice and the rats who manipulate them. Review of Judas and the Black Messiah,
Powerful film tells the story Of the death Of a black panther leader at the hands Of police
Judas and the Black Messiah
Cast: Daniel Kaluuya, Lakeith Stanfield, Jesse Plemons Director: Shaka King Duration: 2 h 6 m Available: On demand
Arriving just weeks after MLK/FBI, Sam Pollard’s meticulous investigation of the FBI’S harassment campaign against Martin Luther King Jr., comes Judas and the Black Messiah, a similarly powerful and infuriating excavation of how the U.S. criminal justice establishment sought to dismantle, silence and literally destroy the mid-century civil rights movement.
The Black Messiah in question isn’t King, but Black Panther leader Fred Hampton. Hampton’s name may not be as well known as King’s, but it might have been, had Chicago police and federal agents not gunned him down at age 21. Although his killing was officially ruled a justifiable homicide, the long lens of history has made clear it was more likely a political assassination.
Also clear is that Hampton was the victim of the FBI’S extensive program of plants and informants, specifically Bill O’neal, who had managed to infiltrate Hampton’s inner circle and become a trusted confidante. As the story opens, O’neal is actually impersonating a federal officer, using a fake badge to steal cars. When he is caught, FBI special agent Roy Mitchell (Jesse Plemons) tells him he can either do the time or get close to Hampton. Mitchell positions the Panthers as the different side of the same coin as the Ku Klux Klan, but the apolitical O’neal — looking to make a living — sees the choice as a no-brainer.
What ensues is a taut urban thriller that evokes its period setting of the late 1960s both in gritty visuals and no-nonsense emotional tone. O’neal, played by Lakeith Stanfield with laconic watchfulness, presents an ideal proxy for viewers who are being introduced to the Black Panthers for the first time: It’s easy to see why Hoover and his men were wary of Hampton, portrayed by Daniel Kaluuya with an entrancing combination of rhetorical fury and quieter moments of reflection. (“Get his Black ass off the street,” FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover barks at one point.)
The film depicts Hampton as a natural-born leader — a spellbinding orator, thoughtful activist and gifted public intellectual — as one observer quips, someone who could “sell salt to a slug.” True to his party’s ethos, he was also completely willing to engage in armed resistance against a state he and his fellow members perceived as murderously hostile to Black citizens.
Superbly directed by Shaka King, the film obeys the tense, one-move-ahead contours of the best psychological dramas, as O’neal gets closer to Hampton not just physically but, quite possibly, ideologically. Stanfield and Kaluuya are outstanding in their respective roles, with Kaluuya doing an especially adroit job of capturing Hampton’s innate charisma and soaring speeches.
If this film were content to be a politically minded two-hander, that would be enough. Instead, King and his team expand the story to delve into O’neal’s relationship with Mitchell, played with straight-arrow blandness by Plemons.
The film is constantly moving and alert — less a high-stakes game of catand-mouse than a densely layered studied of cats, mice and the rats who manipulate them. By the time the film reaches its mournful and preordained conclusion, viewers will have a bone-deep understanding of what was lost when Hampton was shot while sleeping in his Chicago apartment on Dec. 4, 1969. They’ll also have an appreciation for the moral injury incurred by O’neal, who emerges less as a treacherous figure than a tragic one. The titular saviour may be martyred, but in resurrecting his story, King has lifted up something just as precious: cinema that doesn’t sacrifice an ounce of style for its provocative, urgently timely substance. ★★★★★