film reviews, interviews, features | BRWC

Author: Matt Conway

  • Judas And The Black Messiah: Sundance 2021 Review

    Judas And The Black Messiah: Sundance 2021 Review

    Judas and the Black Messiah Synopsis: The story of Fred Hampton, who served as the passionate chairman of the Illinois Black Panther Party. While he rises through the ranks through his commanding speeches, his life changes forever when FBI informant William O’Neal.

    As its biblically apropos title suggests, Judas and the Black Messiah paints itself as a battle of values against the turning tides of betrayal. Writer/director Shaka King allows his overlooked true story to stand taller than your typical biopic fare, evoking a powerful testament against the external suppression of equality.

    King, a director who cut his teeth overseeing various TV shows, elicits a powerful breakout effort within Hampton’s meteoric rise to fame. His fittingly bleak aesthetics have an engaging allure (I took to his brutal, no-thrills depictions of violence), but it’s his intelligent choice to let Hampton exist outside of his roaring speeches that proves the most impactful. King’s script intimately explores the trials and tribulations of martyrdom through Hampton’s prophetic understanding of his untimely fate. As Fred intimately reveals to his spouse, giving everything to a cause means giving away every part of one’s self to see it through.

    Judas and the Black Messiah’s conflict of interests speaks to a generational struggle of values amidst our capitalistic environment. Hampton spends most of the runtime uniting groups to stand as one against racial oppression, with King presenting an exceedingly relevant pulse on the inequitable rights for profiled protestors. On the flip side, William O’Neal operates as a callous agent of chaos, stripping his humanity at every turn while profiting off Hampton’s demise. The draining journey O’Neal undertakes reflects the inherent vapidness of his relentless chase for success, as well as delving into the vicious intentions of shadowy government forces. King’s examination of the character’s dual existences adds nuanced inclusions to the tense conflict at hand.

    All of these viable conceits would mean little if the performances weren’t up to snuff. In Judas’ case, the talented ensemble offers some of the year’s best work to date. If it were up to me, Daniel Kaluuya would already have an Oscar in his hands for his equally volatile and vulnerable depiction of Fred Hampton. Through every speech and intimate moment of reflection, Kaluuya embraces Hampton’s verbose wisdom with emotional authenticity while effortlessly disappearing into his unique persona.

    LaKeith Stanfield continues his run as a dedicated character actor, imbuing Fred with twitchy energy that ultimately builds towards complete mania. Jesse Plemons, Ashton Sanders, and Dominique Fishback also offer strong work, with Fishback often stealing the show as one of the film’s emotional anchors.

    Concluding with a painfully bleak finale that speaks to society’s ongoing struggles, Judas and the Black Messiah thrives as a breathless showstopper deserving of all the praise sung upon it.

    Judas and the Black Messiah opens in theaters and on HBO Max on February 12th.

  • Jockey: Sundance 2021 Review

    Jockey: Sundance 2021 Review

    Jockey Synopsis: As Jackson (Clifton Curtis Jr.), an aging jockey aims for a final championship run, a rookie rider arrives claiming to be his son.

    Sports movies’ triumphant tonality often embrace a confectionary reality for audiences to get lost in. While the agreeable pleasantness has its own charms, it’s the efforts that dig under the surface of a sport’s superficial elements that truly leave an impact. Writer/director Clint Bentley’s assured debut Jockey effectively fits in that latter category. His effort offers an authentic and vulnerable exploration of the athletes at the bottom of the horse racing ecosystem.

    In the wrong hands, familiar story devices stagnate as tired cliches. Under Bentley and co-writers Greg Kwedar’s meditative direction, Jackson’s conflict to endure in his waning career registers with a certain timelessness. Bentley exercises his personal experiences within the horse racing industry to construct a lively sense of place. Even in a business beset with life-changing injuries and a revolving door of hirees (jockeys are treated with a careless abandon, often dumped whenever they begin to slip up), a wholesome community resonates beneath the jockey’s hardened presence.

    Some of the best frames feature Jackson and his peers discussing their painful career crossroads, reflecting on the years of wear-and-tear with nostalgia and fear for what’s to come next (I love Bentley’s choice to surround his small cast with a plethora of real-life jockeys). Bentley skillfully allows audiences to bask in his lived-in setting, employing assured visual choices to create a meditative tonality. His thoughtful mixture of intimate framing and free-flowing movements evokes the character’s weighty emotions without relying on contrived dialogue to spell things out. Bentley’s best work comes in the form of quietly composed long shots, which emotionally meander with Jackson’s vibrant struggles.

    Bentley’s visceral strengths come to life through the insular performance work. I know it’s early in the year, but Clifton Collins Jr. may have already delivered the year’s best performance as the wry veteran Jackson. Collins Jr. brilliantly highlights the character’s long-standing fatigue through nuanced expressions and a sly sense of humor. Jackson is not the more expressive man, but it’s what Collins is able to say without words that often leaves a lasting impact. Moises Arias and Molly Parker are equally strong in their supporting performances, with Parker highlighting some of the film’s rawest frames as Jackson’s longtime boss.

    Jockey rarely misses a beat, with Bentley’s finite observations on horse racing culture speaking towards the stark trajectory of the American experience.

  • Eight For Silver (The Cursed): Sundance 2021 Review

    Eight For Silver (The Cursed): Sundance 2021 Review

    Eight for Silver Synopsis: In the late nineteenth century, brutal land baron Seamus Laurent slaughters a Roma clan, unleashing a curse on his family and village. In the days that follow, the townspeople are plagued by nightmares, Seamus’s son Edward goes missing, and a boy is found murdered. The locals suspect a wild animal, but visiting pathologist John McBride warns of a more sinister presence lurking in the woods.

    Several genre festival films imply the pretense of schlocky entertainment before dancing towards an empty artiness. While some of those efforts work with masterful composure, it’s the noticeable misses that often leave me craving some guilty-pleasure amusement. Thankfully, Sean Ellis’ remarkably unpretentious creature feature Eight for Silver dresses up its familiar devices with intelligence and buckets of bloodshed.

    The key to Ellis’ success is not buying in on the inherent goofiness. A series of shocking battle sequences open the film with a lingering coldness while thoughtfully evoking human’s shameless propensity for violence and domination. Ellis shoots these period frames with an illustrious poise, composing his dimly-lit shots with a foreboding sense of atmosphere (a steady, one-take moment in Roma conveys the weight of its violent actions). The pervasive mood makes a sturdy-enough center for Ellis to indulge in werewolf carnage.

    Eight for Silver’s shameless genre elements may not be for everyone. Most will appreciate Ellis’ favoring of practical effects and shocking imagery, but some will be displeased by the wonky CGI-effects bringing his creatures to life. For me, each production element comes with a certain makeshift earnestness, as Ellis and company push their tight budgetary constraints to their absolute limits. A balanced mixture of atmosphere and grizzly images keeps audiences on their toes throughout the effectively gothic experience.

    I had a blast throughout Silver’s tense runtime, although I can’t ignore a few troubling misgivings. Ellis’ concentration on style over substance can leave audiences with a somewhat inconsistent experience. The buttoned-up narrative is propped-up by a talented cast (Boyd Holbrook has presence as an expert on mythical beasts), but I do wish the few promising subplots presented more heightened dynamics (Boyd’s role as a makeshift father figure feels unearned).

    After sitting through a bevy of weighty art films, Eight for Silver’s straight-forward embrace of macabre moments felt like a much-needed pallet cleanser. This is just the type of film that an eager horror audience would eat up at a late-night screening.

  • Mass: Sundance 2021 Review

    Mass: Sundance 2021 Review

    A measly church office room gets dressed for a tight-knit group of incoming visitors. This seemingly vacant setting acts as a revealing confessional hall in Mass, a confrontational chamber piece on grief and the endless search for the unanswerable. Writer/director Fran Kranz’s poised debut digs under the nails of a societal quandary with gravity and fittingly compassionate touch.

    Mass follows two couples reuniting over the common thread connecting them. Jay (Jason Isaac) and Gail (Martha Plimpton) are still recovering over the loss of their son, who died at the hands of Richard (Reed Birney) and Linda’s (Ann Dowd) son during a senseless school shooting. After previously acquainting with contentious vitriol, the two sides try to discover a semblance of closure from the life-altering events.

    Amidst the holy quarters, the four explore the sentiments stewing in their minds since that infamous day. Kranz’s play-like premise could feel combustibly melodramatic in the wrong hands, but the actor turned director presents just the right touch to make the narrative thread resonate. His precise minimalism keeps the conversation in the forefront while preventing the oppressive rigidness of other close-quarter narratives (the motifs on religion help accent the confessional journey).

    Kranz deserves significant praise for morphing a stale office room into a riveting battleground, oftentimes capturing his actors at their most emotionally vulnerable. Kranz’s stirring dialogue also touches upon the intimate evolution of grief. The characters travel between anger and empathy with a naturalistic verve, throttling a deeply-personal confrontation into a stark reflection on a deeper societal debate.

    We always search for answers in the aftermath of a major tragedy, but those oftentimes heated searches lead nowhere without a sense of empathic understanding. Mass would go nowhere in this search without its dedicated performances. Isaac, Plimpton, Birney, and Dowd are universally terrific in their demanding roles, grasping towards raw sentiments without an ounce of personal vanity. Their emotive range conveys the event’s sizable impact, creating lived-in textures that linger with unspeakable pain.

    Aside from a drawn-out opening act and a few distracting camera techniques (a third act aspect ratio change doesn’t benefit the narrative), Mass vaults impressive heights with its seemingly slight set-up. The glowing initial recognition will be just the start for Kranz and his cast, as I am sure we’ll be hearing plenty of buzz come next award’s season

  • In The Earth: Sundance 2021 Review

    In The Earth: Sundance 2021 Review

    Continuing to bestow the festival scene with his various genre offerings, writer/director Ben Wheatley holds a somewhat controversial presence with film fans. His inventive conceptual designs (Free Fire and High Rise) often tantalize with untapped potential. When it comes to the follow-through though, Wheatley leaves many divided over his ability to carry a narrative over the finish line. The director’s latest effort, the quarantine-driven, sci-fi horror vehicle In the Earth, boasts his trademark levels of inconsistency.

    As the world searches for a cure to a disastrous virus, In the Earth follows a scientist (Joel Fry) and park scout (Ellora Torchia), who venture deep in the forest for a routine equipment run. When they discover a reclusive nomad (Reece Shearsmith), the two find themselves trapped into a mystical pack to uncover a dangerously untamed force.

    To Wheatley’s credit, In the Earth represents the director’s most visually-assured work to date. Amidst the endless wave of trees and unkempt wildlife, Wheatley elicits some atmospheric dread from his isolated setting. However, it’s not until the film presents its horror-driven chaos that the director truly compels. A vibrant mixture of cloudy green and red tones convey an uneasy mist before wildly subversive imagery confronts the audience. In the Earth works best at its most visceral, often time intoxicating viewers with a nightmarish blend of reality and myth.

    Once you look past the inventive veneer, Wheatley’s narrative collapses under its shallow pre-tenses. Wheatley’s pondering, dialogue-driven frames often confuse themselves for thoughtful meditation, with the dry regurgitations ultimately saying very little about its interesting subject matter. I love meditative nightmares of this elk, but much of In the Earth’s ponderous runtime misses those film’s distinct atmosphere and substantive.

    One could see how the material could connect to our COVID-based dread in thoughtful manners, but Wheatley’s lack of deftness ensures few frames of thoughtful examinations. When the director’s horror-bend isn’t on full display, his narrative barely stays afloat amidst the flat characterization work. Stars Joel Fry and Ellora Torchia are left carrying a listless plot that gives them little in terms of agency or development.

    Many will outwardly compare In the Earth to its atmospheric, sci-fi brethren (Annihilation has been a common point of reference). However, those well-constructed offerings employ a substantive streak that In the Earth is desperately missing from its DNA. Wheatley’s latest genre miss gets caught in his familiar favoring of style over substance.