Seeing all sides strength not flaw of ‘Messiah’
Balanced approach keeps viewer connected to film’s characters
Early in “Judas and the Black Messiah,” we meet Bill O’neal, a petty thief whose gimmick is to flash a badge, pretend to be a plainclothes cop and steal people’s cars. It’s a crime that reveals two things about O’neal: The first is that he doesn’t have the best survival instincts. The second is that he’s aspirational, as people will often pretend to be what they wish they were.
A minute or two of screen time later, O’neal has been
arrested, and an FBI agent (Jesse Plemons) is making him an offer. O’neal can go to jail for 6½ years, or he can try to infiltrate
the Black Panthers as an FBI informant.
“Judas and the Black Messiah” puts us into the shoes of the man it’s identifying as “Judas,” and makes our identification with O’neal all the more reflexive by having him played by Lakeith Stanfield (“Sorry to Bother You”), normally a sympathetic lead: What would you do, when faced with a prison term?
“Judas and the Black Messiah,” streaming on HBO Max starting Friday, Feb. 12, is an odd, compelling film, in that its presentation of everyone it portrays is so balanced that the point of view is hard to identify. But perhaps the point of view is less important than the movie’s ability to capture a historical moment.
If O’neal is the Judas of the piece, then Fred Hampton (Daniel Kaluuya) of the Black Panthers
is the “Black Messiah” in this equation, but calling him that is ironic, in that this is what FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover called him. It’s what Hoover feared, a Black leader who could unite the civil rights movement, the youth movement and the antiwar movement. By 1969, when the film takes place, Hoover had long made it his mission to destroy whoever he thought could become a Black messiah, including (as we know from “MLK/FBI”), the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
“Judas and the Black Messiah” doesn’t follow any typical movie pattern. It’s not about an undercover operative who switches allegiances (“Deep Cover”). It’s not about a sniv
eling creep whose actions lead to the death of a remarkable man (“The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford”). And it’s not about a good guy who goes undercover and experiences the daily terror of possible exposure (“Donnie Brasco”). It’s none of those things, and yet contains elements of all those things.
In a sense, the most impressive aspect of the film is that it doesn’t seem like it should hold together, and yet it does. Hampton, as presented here, is decisive and forthright. He has committed his life to a cause, in complete awareness of what that this means. “I’m not gonna die in a car wreck. I’m not gonna die from a bad heart,” he says in a speech. “I’m gonna die for the people.” He’s a 21-year-old man with everything on the line, and Kaluuya plays him with force, magnetism and gravity.
He’s by far the better man, and yet every time O’neal comes close to having his cover blown, we tense up. A lifetime of movie going has trained us to root for the protagonist — especially as we can see how alone he is. The FBI doesn’t care about him because his safety is not a priority. They’ve actually sent him out to go undercover in Chicago, his native city, where people know him.
So perhaps the bad guy, in this construction, is O’neal’s
FBI handler — except no. The agent is no caricature. At one point, he’s talking to Hoover (Martin Sheen in Jabba the Hutt makeup), who’s spouting racist nonsense, and he looks appalled. So, is the villain Hoover? Perhaps. But he’s so removed from the action that he’s more like a symbol.
This is, in essence, the achievement of “Judas and the Black Messiah.” In addition to its being beautifully shot and carefully directed by Shaka King — and an entertaining film — it presents an arresting situation. No one is entirely evil, and yet something entirely evil happens, anyway. Moreover, we understand how it happens and why it happens.
“Judas and the Black Messiah” quietly announces its modern relevance by presenting as sophisticated a depiction of systemic racism as you could hope to see in a movie.