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UNEVEN ‘MONSTER’ PUTS THE SYSTEM ON TRIAL
“Monster” is an effective, affecting film that is at odds with itself. ● The heartfelt, authentic performances, especially from Kelvin Harrison Jr., are measured and controlled. The direction, by Anthony Mandler in his feature debut, is anything but. He pulls out all the stops — quirky angles, security camera footage, grainy black-and-white photos and cellphone footage, among other things.
This is a movie with something to say but it isn’t quite sure how to say it. It ends up making less of a statement on race and justice and more on how precision performances can make a movie better than it should be.
Based on Walter Dean Myers’ youngadult novel, the film follows the arrest and trial of Steve Harmon (Harrison) on a murder charge. A robbery of a bodega goes wrong and the clerk is killed; Steve is accused of signaling the robbers when the coast was clear.
It seems unlikely that Steve would commit such a crime or any crime at all. He’s a good student at a prestigious high school and an aspiring filmmaker. His parents (Jennifer Hudson and Jeffrey Wright) love him, and he’s close with his little brother.
‘Monster’ is a lot of things, but it isn’t subtle
He is also Black.
In the New York legal system, this is a major strike against him.
“He’s not who you think he is,” Steve’s attorney, Katherine O’Brien (Jennifer Ehle), tells bulldog prosecutor Anthony Petrocelli (Paul Ben-Victor, barking out his lines).
“He looks the part to me,” Petrocelli says.
Later, talking to Steve, O’Brien puts it more plainly when explaining why some jurors doubtless walked into the courtroom thinking he was guilty: “You’re young, you’re Black and you’re on trial.”
This is not a subtle movie.
It is a busy one, however. In a voiceover, Steve explains that he will relate his experiences as if this were a film that he is writing, directing and starring in.
ASAP Rocky and
John David Washington help elevate the cliches
This allows Mandler to bounce back and forth from the courtroom to Steve’s stint in jail as he awaits trial to his life before his arrest. Steve is a born filmmaker, framing everything in his mind, capturing images with his ever-present camera. That’s how he meets King (ASAP Rocky), who runs the neighborhood but takes Steve under his wing, telling him he can give him a more accurate portrayal of Harlem life than Steve will find on his own.
But King also works with “Bobo” Evans (John David Washington), a quiet, menacing presence. They are the ones who actually carry out the stick-up. That Steve knows them, however vaguely, is not something in his favor in terms of his case.
The story plays with the unreliability of memory. How can Steve be expected to remember everything he’s ever said to anyone? That’s reasonable. But the film pounds the point home with flashbacks to the high school film club Steve belongs to, in which his teacher, Mr. Sawicki (Tim Blake Nelson), showing the students “Rashomon.”
We get it.
But Kelvin Harrison Jr. anchors the film
The dialogue is often stilted and overdone. “He’s a monster! He’s a monster!” Petrocelli bellows at the jury while pointing to King and Steve. In a movie with so many overdone elements, BenVictor’s performance is the most overdone of all.
Yet for all that, the other performances keep you engaged. Ehle quietly goes about the business of trying to build a case for her client, slowly growing more confident. ASAP Rocky’s King is written as a stereotypical street tough, but his performance is warm and inviting — not always, of course. But
King shows Steve a side he doesn’t show anyone else in the neighborhood. It’s a believable contradiction thanks to the way he plays it.
Harrison is the best of all — good thing, since nearly every scene revolves around him. Steve is no pushover, and there are layers to his experience and to what happened that he reveals slowly. Harrison’s expressive eyes say a lot when he doesn’t.
His delivery of cliched lines elevates them. When O’Brien tells him he needs to let the jury know who he really is, he says, “It doesn’t matter. They can’t hear it.”
And you believe it.
“Monster” is a good movie that could have been a better one. Mandler needs to trust both his film and his audience more. Give him points for trying, but he’s just trying too hard.