Black and Blue

Cert: 15A; Now showing

The title of this film encapsulates the perfectly good premise on which it is based. Unfortunately the way it is delivered — a cliché-ridden screenplay by Peter A Dowling and a lack of real suspense by director Deon Taylor — means the film is a wasted opportunity.

Despite personal experience of racism from the New Orleans police, young African American veteran Alicia West (Naomie Harris, below) joins the force, the blue of the title. Doing so alienates her from the black community. So when her body-cam captures the murder of a young black suspect by a police officer, Malone (Frank Grillo), she has few places to turn.

It’s action-packed but relies too much on contrived jump frights to create suspense; there are also odd holes in the story, like why the young man was murdered and er, couldn’t she upload the file to YouTube? The inevitable comparison to Training

Day does it no favours.