A spate of films have appeared on our screens as of late that feel like they only really could have been made now, as a sort of culmination of what has come before, a breaking point, explored in ways that hold a mirror up to how the situation is presently, whether set modern day (Assassination Nation, The Hate U Give) or in the past (BlacKkKlansman).
The latest is Monsters and Men, a thoughtful, ambitious and keenly-judged feature debut from writer-director Reinaldo Marcus Green that deals with the ricocheting effect of a black man being gunned down by police officers who purportedly perceived he was a threat to them, despite a videotaping witness suggesting he didn’t have a gun in his hand as the cops attested.
It’s a film of three distinct parts threaded together by how one event ripples through individual lives, evoking the Oscar-winning Moonlight in form at least with its three-tier structure as each of the character-driven pieces present us with their own angle on the specific situation that drives the plot and the societal themes at large. As it starts out it makes you believe you’re only going to see things from one perspective before revealing a really well-played contrasting and complimenting set-up that’s both narratively and thematically satisfying.
There’s the key witness filming the event, Manny (Anthony Ramos) who has just started a new job to provide for his wife and young daughter who has to weigh up the negative effect uploading the video to the web will have on his family’s life against his need to let the world see what actually happened. There’s the strong-willed black police officer, Dennis (John David Washington, who also starred in the aforementioned BlacKkKlansman), within the system who wasn’t directly involved with the shooting but who is colleagues with the officers responsible and with a family of his own to think about every time he heads out to patrol the city streets. And finally a young baseball star-in-the-making, Zyrick (Kevin Harrison Jr.), who is inspired to take protesting action after watching the footage.
In the middle police-focused segment, it refreshingly touches on the idea of the danger cops put themselves in every day as much as it lends vital weight to the argument that there is really no excuse for a group of officers to gun down an unarmed black man. “One cop’s mistake and now we’re all to blame,” explains Dennis when a dinner date turns sour once conversation turns to the shooting. “I thought you were different, that maybe you were part of the solution” retorts the family friends who brought the topic up. Both lines ring in your ears.
It’s the film’s strongest and most thought-provoking segment, evoking the likes of Rampart (directed by one of this film’s executive producers, Oren Moverman) and even TV’s The Shield, if not in visceral immediacy then certainly in the ways it explores interdepartmental attitudes, procedures and loyalty in the face of intense, albeit sadly all-too-common occurrences on the street.
As a whole it’s a bit more of a studied, comparatively subdued experience than the far more rambunctious, fired-up The Hate U Give. Nevertheless, in its own quietly powerful way, it explores the micro and macro effects of violence and killing at the hands of police officer that are an unfortunate regular occurrence in America, asking difficult and necessary questions that really stay with you.
Is this an inevitability of modern day life in America? Is there a solution? Why should it be allowed to continue? Where does police protecting themselves end and police brutality begin? The words “Black Lives Matter” never actually cross the lips of anyone in the film but it nevertheless pulses through every scene. In the wake of Charlottesville in particular, it’s a film that takes on more weight, making you think as it compels with its story filled with excellent performances, involving soundscape (the amplified sounds of the New York City streets is brilliantly achieved) and memorable score by Kris Bowers that’s at once sorrowful and hopeful, encapsulating the film’s ethos that these terrible things happen but there’s light at the end of the tunnel that things might some day change.
Monsters and Men is in UK cinemas from Friday January 18th.
