Judas and the Black Messiah
Judas and the Black Messiah has the DNA of The Departed with the dynamics of The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. As the latter, director Shaka King's biopic is centered around two men, the life of the one, Fred Hampton of the Chicago Black Panther Party, played by Daniel Kaluuya told through the reflection and impression he makes upon the other, Bill O'Neal, a reluctant FBI informant, played by LaKieth Stanfield.
Thankfully both men matter to this film. Where most biopics simply mine their material from the details and specific circumstances of someone's life, their end result is often predictable, flat, and uninspired. Only one person matters. But through relationship (Jesse and Robert's, Fred and Bill's) men's souls are more finely portrayed through the foils we play to one another. We draw out a bigger, fuller picture of who each other are. Thus, we know Fred through Bill and Bill through Fred. This primary dynamic makes this tension and betrayal work on a deeper level and is one of my favorite parts of the film.
Both these men are embroiled in a war of ideas which threatens to destroy them both. Fred is battling the oppressive, traditional ideas which have shaped our culture and bound minorities within it, with ideas of empowerment and self-sufficiency. Bill is stuck between those two ideologies, both sides pulling him in opposite directions and slowly, excruciatingly ripping his soul apart before our eyes (a particularly moving element of the film captured so well by Stanfield's tortured performance). This film brings the war surrounding race, equality, abuse of power, and slavery home to us in how they impact both these mens' lives. Those lives are at stake. Their words, actions, and souls are given to that war, willingly or no. And the result, like humans, is complicated, tragic, and so often unjust, angering, and crushing.
Much could be said of the many fantastic performances, but I feel the camera and score steal the show. They are visceral, raw and dissonant in their insistence to push and prod us and our hearts into the war before us. It gives us no room to be casual observers, because no one is in this nation. The historical footage also nicely bring that point home to us.
99 bullets fired to silence 1 voice is a war. The question is who started that war? And why? What do we do with Hampton's life and ideas? What were they born of? What do we do with someone like Bill O'Neal? Villain or victim? These aren't easy questions but the fallout from their conflict is starkly played out in our country's history and in Fred and Bill's relationship and respective ends.
Or, put simply, what is the cost we pay in this nation by selling our souls for thirty pieces of silver from the Pharisees, or a gas station from the FBI just to ignore the ideas that have shaped our society, our minds, and our culture?
RyGuy