Black and Blue Review
R: Violence and Language
Runtime: 1 Hour and 48 Minutes
Production Companies: Royal Viking Entertainment, Hidden Empire Film Group
Distributor: Screen Gems
Director: Deon Taylor
Writer: Peter A. Dowling
Cast: Naomie Harris, Tyrese Gibson, Frank Grillo, Mike Colter, Reid Scott, Beau Knapp
Release Date: October 25, 2019
Set in New Orleans, we focus on Alicia West, an African-American war vet who served in Afghanistan and is three weeks into serving as a rookie cop, which doesn’t really bode well for her. The movie begins with her out for a morning jog until two cops pull up on her and aggressively stop and frisk her. Even when she shows them her badge, it's clear how little they care and try to justify their racism. In the Black community she’s seen as a traitor — because I guess it’s wrong for Black people to be cops? She interacts with a kid hanging outside the parking lot of a convenience store and, in the midst of a harmless conversation, his mom — who is also an ex-friend of hers — berates her because she’s a cop. Clearly (and stupidly), Alicia can’t have it both ways. After offering to cover her partner’s night shift, she’s paired with a seasoned Black cop who doesn’t play by the rules as she attempts to do. This leads to her inadvertently witnessing the murder of a young teenage drug dealer on her body cam, the crime committed by corrupt cops. Now she’s a target of the boys in blue, who seek to kill her and destroy the evidence of the body cam, and gangsters who are led to believe she was the one who killed the nephew of a gang boss. With the help of a reluctant store manager, she must survive the night and prove her innocence while getting the justice she deserves.
I give director Deon Taylor this: as far as action set pieces go, he does a valiant effort of taking advantage of his locations. When it comes to the sequence of Alicia witnessing the murder of a young Black teen by her corrupt peers (which kicks off the story), Taylor does everything in his power via shot composition and fun camerawork to make it thrilling. For a brief moment, I was hooked and immersed, being in the position of West who must fend for her life while avoiding criminals and the police. Also, for the first time ever in an action movie YOU SEE THE HERO TAKE A NAP! As poorly written and as mindless as this movie is, I appreciate that the only sense of realism is something no other action film has ever done: let the protagonist rest. You never see Ethan Hunt or James Bond take a nap when they’re chased all around town. You never see them exhausted. With Alicia, she takes enough damage to result in her exhaustion and for a brief moment she lays down to take a nap — as she should! I can’t believe it took this generic action thriller to do something new that other action movies need to implement, but I’m glad it’s here because it’s the only thing that sets it apart from every other police action drama out there.
Our central protagonist Alicia is enticing, for she has an interesting background that they reveal through only exposition that has you curious about her motivations to risk her reputation and join the police force, especially when it relates to the people in her community. I always forget Naomie Harris is an English actress. It’s just so weird seeing her in American productions and then realizing, “Oh yeah, she’s from England.” I went on a rant about this several reviews back about another Black European actor, but I forget which one. For what it’s worth, Harris does a great job being an onscreen presence and having the energy to lead an action film. Now Moneypenny is a hero! I just wish it was a film of substance.
You gotta hand it to the people who created the trailer for Black and Blue: they made it to seem like a progressive action thriller with a thoughtful social commentary about Black Lives Matter. Watch the trailer and tell me it didn’t look like it wanted to have something insightful to say. Did you watch it? Yes? Cool. Let me burst your bubble a bit here. This crap ain’t got shit to say at all, whatsoever. Black and Blue is a generic, by-the-books police action thriller that takes so many pages out of better police procedural action thrillers, such as Training Day and The Fugitive and then has the dialogue on par with every network police drama, which begs the question, “Are you sure this wasn’t a failed Starz miniseries or a Starz TV movie?”
One of the worst things for an action thriller to do is to try to have its cake and eat it too. You can't have a muddled social statement of race underlaid by a bland and generically plotted action thriller, especially when you don’t know exactly how to see-saw. One of my major problems with Black and Blue is the depiction of the sides within the title where everyone outside of the lead are one-dimensional stereotypes. I’m not one to say, “Not all officers” and look like a #Bluelivesmatter schmuck, but literally all of the cops in the film are presented to be stereotypically racist. Also, all of the Black people are presented as stereotypical, unlikable ghetto people who are way too stubborn to listen to reason — like Alicia being framed for a crime she clearly wouldn’t commit.
That’s the hardest pill the film asks you to swallow which I just couldn’t get behind. It’s something that pissed me off with another police procedural action thriller this year, Don’t Let Go where occupation is more emphasized than the handling of race relations amongst people of the same race. Whereas Don’t Let Go suffered from a script where the significance of race wasn’t even an afterthought, because it was meant for a White cast and yet featured a predominantly Black cast, this suffers from the intention that Black people would quickly pit themselves against other Black people. Seriously, Alicia is one of three Black people — one being corrupt and the other being the commanding officer (or however that rank works) — who serves in the district and everyone just thinks of it as a betrayal of their own race, as if Black people aren’t supposed to be cops?
I understand that this is clearly designed to appeal to the Black demographic and play as an exhibition of the dynamic within an underrepresented community. But when every character follows the same stereotypes in terms of writing, you feel the insufficiency of script where it doesn’t even attempt to speak about the balance between being Black and a cop.
The narrative plodded so heavily as a televised cop drama pilot that doesn’t know much of its age demographic or have a distinct tone. It took forever for me to realize this was rated R, not because of the bloody violence, but because of the language. This movie is sparse on the word “fuck” but runs on 24bpm (bitch per minute).
Naomie Harris is great and delivers an engaging performance and Gibson is amazingly reserved. BUT EVERYBODY ELSE… God, somebody should have done better casting because some of the most antagonistic forces barely even come off as a threat. The main baddie is played by Frank Grillo, who is pretty much the same character as Crossbones from the MCU but in the form of a corrupt cop (but truly what's the difference?) Someone who should not have been there is Mike Colter as the gang leader Darius and the film tries so hard to make him frightening and intimidating when it's such a hard sell. Bearing a gold grill, gold chains, and a fur coat, Mike Colter will always be Luke Cage, no matter how much you try to shape his appearance. He’s still that distinctive character we love. The dude is a damn teddy bear and you can’t make a teddy bear look scary. His adorable small eyes, bald head, and massive figure just doesn’t work no matter what lame gang leader accessories you throw on him. Plus, they attempt to emphasize his “menacing” look by having shots of him mugging for the camera, trying to look threatening towards his target, which just made me burst out in laughter in most occasions. There is a shot — which is in the trailer — of him outside of a cell where someone is being held captive and looking like he’s about to have ‘em for dinner cannibalistic style. My only reaction was laughter, along with saying:
With a generic script strung together by stereotypical depictions of its environment, Black and Blue pretentiously fails at serving as a fun action thriller with social commentary, for it doesn’t have the brains to say anything at all.
