This image released by Warner Bros. Pictures shows, from left, Daniel Kaluuya, Dominique Thorne and Lakeith Stanfield in a scene from âœJudas and the Black Messiah.â (Warner Bros. Pictures via AP) This image released by Warner Bros. Pictures shows Daniel Kaluuya in a scene from Judas and the Black Messiah. (Warner Bros. Pictures via AP) This image released by Warner Bros. Pictures shows Daniel Kaluuya, left, and Lakeith Stanfield, right, in a scene from Judas and the Black Messiah. (Warner Bros. Pictures via AP) This image released by Warner Bros. Pictures shows Lakeith Stanfield, left, and Jesse Plemons in a scene from Judas and the Black Messiah. (Warner Bros. Pictures via AP)
In the wake of the murder of George Floyd and the rise of Black Lives Matter, Shaka King’s “Judas and the Black Messiah” could not arrive at a more opportune time. It’s the story of J. Edgar Hoover’s corrupt FBI targeting one man, but it’s really a microcosm of every unwarranted, unmitigated attack on people of color since policing began.
There are few revelations involved in King’s telling of the life and death of Black Panther icon Fred Hampton, but it sufficiently motivates rage at the systemic racism that left a 21-year-old community organizer lying in a pool of blood despite doing nothing more heinous than pilfering ice cream.
Forces of revolution and oppression collide and entangle in Shaka King’s blistering “Judas and the Black Messiah,” a potent and vividly acted drama about the FBI’s subversion and assassination of Chicago Black Panther leader Fred Hampton. King’s film, which he wrote with Will Berson, plunges into the dark chapter in American history when J. Edgar […]
Forces of revolution and oppression collide and entangle in Shaka King's blistering “Judas and the Black Messiah,” a potent and vividly acted drama abou.