Teen on TRIAL
A YOUNG NEW YORKER faces life in prison for a fatal robbery in a Netflix film
Monster
NEW Genre: Drama Available: Friday 7 May Runs: 98min TVSW says: The Night Of meets When They See Us
A17-YEAR-OLD student finds himself charged with a crime he insists he didn’t commit in a tense new Netflix film, Monster, based on the award-winning novel by Walter Dean Myers.
Kelvin Harrison Jr plays Steve Harmon, a law-abiding New York teenager and aspiring filmmaker who is taken into custody and charged as an accomplice after an armed robbery at a Harlem convenience store ends in the death of the store’s owner.
JUDGED BEFORE JURY
Police think Steve acted as lookout for the robbery, but his middle-class parents (Jeffrey Wright and Jennifer Hudson) don’t believe their son could have been involved. However, Steve’s case isn’t helped by the fact he was acquainted with the robbers, and spoke to them right before the crime.
‘Steve comes from a beautiful home and has loving parents,’ says Harrison. ‘But he is not exempt from the black experience – people still judge him without even knowing him. He was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and it looks like he’s going to have his life snatched away from him.’
As the action jumps between the courtroom trial and events leading up to the crime, the prosecutor tries to make the case that Steve is a ‘monster’ who was in cahoots with the two robbers – played by rapper Rakim Mayers and John David Washington – while Steve’s lawyer (Jennifer Ehle) makes it her mission to show the jury he is falsely accused and should go free.
Part of the film was shot in a real, working prison and Harrison used the grim surroundings to help him get into character.
‘Steve spends a lot of time in jail during the trial,’ he says. ‘There’s one scene where he has a panic attack, and
I asked the film crew to lock me in the cell for a few hours. It really helped get a sense of the fear and claustrophobia that Steve would have been suffering.’