‘ SLEIGHT’ STAR JACOB LATIMORE IS THE HERO WE NEED
Street magician’s greatest power comes from his smarts
As film fans await a return to space for another Guardians of
the Galaxy, a new, lower- key superhero who’s way more downtoearth is making his debut.
Director J. D. Dillard’s genre mash- up Sleight ( now showing) introduces Bo Wolfe ( Jacob Latimore), a confident L. A. street magician with a knack for card tricks and grounded wizardry.
He’s also the young black superhero that pop culture doesn’t have but needs, beating Chadwick Boseman’s Black Panther to the big screen as an unexpected and socially important good guy with a broad appeal.
“There’s certainly no shortage of movies centering on young black boys falling into crime, and I don’t think black stories need to be relegated only to crime, the inner city and civil rights,” says Dillard, who dreamed up the concept with co- writer Alex Theurer.
“Our goal with Sleight was to show that circumstance can trap anyone, forcing them to take desperate measures.”
Here are five reasons why Latimore’s character is so relevant: BO KNOWS SCIENCE. Let’s face it: Superpowers aren’t very realistic. But Bo is way more like Iron Man in that his mind is his greatest asset.
Bo dropped out of college — and left behind a fantastic engineering scholarship — after his mom died, and he had to take care of his younger sister, Tina ( Storm Reid).
He still uses his smarts to figure out heroic life hacks like levitating rings and pulling handguns out of bad guys’ hands, though at a potential cost to his physical well- being. BO KNOWS FLAWS. There’s definitely some hubris in Bo’s game, and he has an origin story not unlike Spider- Man’s.
He knows he’s a good magician with confidence and charisma. Bo gets involved with drug dealer Angelo ( Dulé Hill) to make some money on the side and give Tina a better life. Both plans kind of blow up in his face. BO KNOWS SUPERVILLAINS. Not since probably Vincent D’Onofrio’s Kingpin on Daredevil have we seen such a vicious and deliciously bad businessman as Hill’s Angelo.
If you were to find an honest togoodness antagonist on the streets of Los Angeles, he wouldn’t be the Joker — he’d probably be Angelo. BO KNOWS FRIENDSHIP. His morally questionable decisions come out of a big heart.
Many of Bo’s mistakes come from trying to take care of those around him, and when the chips are down, he falls back on an old friend: a former science teacher and mentor ( Frank Clem) who ups Bo’s innovative magical know- how. BO KNOWS STYLE. No tights, no mask, no armored suit, no magical hammer — Bo’s ensemble is made up of a hoodie, ball cap and backpack.
It’s a costume that’s provocative and timely and is given new benevolent significance: The hoodie becomes a symbol of good and of the character’s strong individuality.
As Bo says, “Doing something no one else can do makes you a magician,” and Sleight’s spin on iconography makes this kid stand out in a busy galaxy of heroes.