Larry Roberson. A cameo appearance by comedian
Lil’ Rel Howery rounds out a
Get Outreunion with Kaaluya and Stanfield.
King does a remarkable job of carrying us through Hampton’s final days and hitting important historical beats, including his efforts to broker peace with Chicago street gangs and the formation of the Rainbow Coalition with white and Latino groups who found common ground.
But
Judas is one of those rare films that could have benefited from an even longer runtime than its 2 hours, 6 minutes: an historical epic in the key of
Spike Lee’s 1992 opus
Malcolm X would’ve been welcome.
Who’s Who in Judas and the Black Messiah: A Character Guide Vulture.com 2/13/2021 Nick Allen
Judas and the Black Messiah has the all the trappings of a genre movie it’s a gritty crime thriller that unfolds on the tense stage of an anti-police revolution but it shouldn’t be underestimated as a history lesson. In its true story of how informant William O’Neal (Lakeith Stanfield) infiltrated the Illinois chapter of the Black Panther Party in the late 1960s, director Shaka King’s film highlights historical details and lives that have rarely been given mainstream focus. Along with reckoning with the horrific assassination of party chairman Fred Hampton (Daniel Kaluuya) by Chicago Police, the FBI, and the State’s Attorney’s Office, the film also celebrates Hampton’s power as an orator and man of the people, as well as the impact of his organization on the city of Chicago: the breakfast programs, the free healthcare, the Rainbow Coalition, and more
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Hollywood’s relationship with the Black Panther Party is about as graceful and nuanced as the general public’s, and that’s certainly no accident. Though plenty of documentaries have taken great pains to accurately outline the Panthers’ roots, including the more recent
Vanguard of the Revolution from Stanley Nelson, attempts at fictionalizing the once far-reaching, Oakland-based movement have ranged from being punchlines in
Forrest Gump to pitiable victims in last year’s
The Trial of the Chicago 7. And this is mainly because storytellers generally don’t have a clue how audiences will react to a film that presents outspoken, militant, American socialists as underdog protagonists, which is sort of the point in Shaka King’s new biographical drama,