2014 Capsule Reviews

 Interstellar

rating: *****

review: For me this was unquestionably Christopher Nolan hitting his highest note after The Dark Knight, and still his best film since, his most deeply piercing of the human experience, and the reason I personally became a big fan of Matthew McConnaughey.

Winter's Tale

rating: *****

review: Even before having recently having actually read a book by Mark Helprin, I fell heads over heels for this, which I saw because it stars my favorite actor, Colin Farrell, and costars two other favorites, Russell Crowe and Will Smith.  A truly transcendent fairy tale.

Locke

rating: *****

review: Back when there was still chatter of Tom Hardy being the best actor of his generation, there was a lot of interest in this hugely ambitious and yet incredibly simple movie: Hardy talking into a phone the whole movie, and that's it.  I find the results fascinating.

The Grand Budapest Hotel

rating: ****

review: Believe or not, but for those who are aware that Isle of Dogs later became one of my all-time favorite movies, I haven't really immersed myself in Wes Anderson's films.  This was very, very easy to love, and hits the kind of notes most other films don't even dream considering while employing Anderson's trademark all-star ensemble cast formula.

Miss Julie

rating: ****

review: Colin Farrell again, acting opposite Jessica Chastain in what is essentially a play staged directly to film.  I can't think of two actors I'd rather enjoy carrying a whole movie together.

Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)

rating: ****

review: Yeah, it's the movie that allowed everyone to love Michael Keaton again, a brilliant jazz case study of legacy and stage acting, filmed as one long cut.  It's hard not to be impressed.

Exodus: Gods and Kings

rating: ****

review: Yeah, it's Ridley Scott waxing poetic about the sad lives of great men, on a biblical scale, but for me it's always been the showcase for Joel Edgerton's best performance.

The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby

rating: ****

review: For a brief moment it really did seem that Jessica Chastain was going to be recognized as one of Hollywood's new giants, but that's not really how it's played out since.  This is arguably her greatest showcase, with an incredible three separate cuts with which to enjoy it.

Edge of Tomorrow

rating: ****

review: You may not realize this, but Hollywood really does go out of its way to try and make you hate its stars, after a while, and they'll do it in such a way that you think it was your idea.  Tom Cruise had already reached that point ten years earlier, and he had increasingly relied on action roles to keep his popular career going.  By the time this one came out everyone was tired of the act, but then enough people realized that it was actually pretty good that it deservedly became a cult hit.

Inherent Vice

rating: ****

review: Thomas Pynchon at last earns his Hollywood moment, and it was absolutely worth the wait.

The LEGO Movie

rating: ****

review: In what might have come off as a shameless plug for toys, it actually turns out to be one of the great Will Ferrell movies, among other things.  Everyone just assumes in animated movies these days it's a Disney Pixar world, but neither Disney nor Pixar is capable of something like this.

A Million Ways to Die in the West

rating: ****

review: Maybe you have to be the rare demographic that's familiar with both the western genre and Seth MacFarlane to appreciate it, but I found this hilarious, a spoof worthy of comparison with Blazing Saddles.

Noah

rating: ****

review: Russell Crowe brings so much weightiness to his performances it can sometimes seem difficult to justify.  I think this one does.

The Amazing Spider-Man 2

rating: ****

review: I mean, sure, if you're worried so much about how the villains come off, you might worry about enjoying this one.  But everything else is literally amazing.  There are no better Spider-Man movies than the Webb/Garfield/Stone ones.

American Sniper

rating: ****

review: This is the last adult drama to top a year's box office.  It's probably Eastwood's last big statement.  And it's Bradley Cooper's biggest breakthrough.  This is the one that made him capable of doing whatever he wants.  He deserved it.  

Muppets Most Wanted

rating: ****

review: Everyone loved how the first one made the Muppets relevant again.  I love how this one just lets them be the Muppets again.

Monuments Men

rating: ****

review: Critics seemed baffled that anyone would waste time about making a movie around the guys who saved art during WWII.  I think the movie itself explains that, and does it entertainingly.  

Frank Miller's Sin City: A Dame to Kill For

rating: ****

review: I love these movies.  I'm still astonished they even happened.

John Wick

rating: ****

review: I admit I was pretty late to this party, so I'm still working at fully appreciating the results, but c'mon, this is Keanu Reeves finding a third defining film series.  Who does that???

The Zero Theorem

rating: ***

review: Terry Gilliam is sometimes just weird.  This is him being weird without really nailing the magic he finds in his best work.

Hercules

rating: ***

review: The good news is that this is far, far superior to The Scorpion King.  The bad news is that Dwayne Johnson doesn't quite find the Greek myth equivalent of the Avengers he might have been looking for.

Guardians of the Galaxy

rating: ***

review: It's very enjoyable, a huge breath of fresh air in the MCU, but it ain't quite Star Wars and it ain't quite Princess Bride, both of which it kind of wants to be.  

Dumb and Dumber To

rating: ***

review: Even though Jim Carrey is one of my all-time favorite actors, I confess one of the movies he's best known for I don't really know that well.  So this sequel is greeted, by me, as funny, but maybe not the best way to try and salvage his career at that time.

Snowpiercer

rating: ***

review: Greeted as an instant cult favorite, I caught it later and enjoyed it, but not sure it's quite the treasure everyone says it is.

Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit

rating: ***

review: This kind of became the franchise where popular film careers came to die.  Undeservedly so.  This was another fine Chris Pine showcase with a fun supporting cast around him.

The Drop

rating: ***

review: James Gandolfini must have been a very confused man.  He received endless praise for his TV work (hey, Bryan Cranston has received the same treatment, by the way), but anytime he did a movie he couldn't find any love.  This is another movie worth considering to try and figure out why.  Tom Hardy, meanwhile, does another accent job.  A movie I personally need to revisit at some point, too.

Deliver Us From Evil

rating: ***

review: At this point I had such high expectations for Eric Bana movies, it was disappointing to see that he had reached his brick wall, from which he has yet to emerge.

The Theory of Everything

rating: ***

review: Kind of the opposite of A Beautiful Mind, this is the Stephen Hawking movie that kind of asks you to be okay with the way his marriage ended.  Colors my whole perception of the results.

X-Men: Days of the Future Past

rating: ***

review: Hugh Jackman had become bigger than the X-Men franchise from the moment he first appeared in it, but at the same time he also forever found it difficult to outlive.  This is the exact moment in which he began to succeed, and it's all the more impossible to care about anything else happening around him.  Except Quicksilver.  That was the second brilliant thing these X-Men movies did.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier

rating: ***

review: I originally thought of this as the Nick Fury movie.  Then I thought of it as the elevator fight movie.  Now I guess I really just have to rewatch it, and I still think it's one of the better MCU efforts, but it's still tough to think of the whole movie as a distinct achievement.

The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies

rating: ***

review: I actually do really enjoy the Hobbit movies, but Jackson's decision to have that one guy make truly ridiculous efforts to try and get away with being a terrible person, it gets in the way.  It's the main reason I haven't made an effort to rewatch the trilogy, which on the whole I think is better than the first one.

The Expendables 3

rating: ***

review: I love how this one commits to Mel Gibson being the villain.  If he can't be a Hollywood star like he used to, he ought to at least have interesting roles available.

Transformers: Age of Extinction

rating: ***

review: I love how these movies suddenly just dive into a dystopian future in this one.  

Let's Be Cops

rating: **

review: If Jake Johnson had significantly changed his persona from New Girl for this, he might have gone on to have an actual movie career.  Still enjoyable.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

rating: **

review: I always thought the Transformers were far too big in their movies.  And essentially it's difficult to love these movies for the same reason.  Only here, it just seems more egregious.

300: Rise of an Empire

rating: **

review: On the one hand, it's great to just let Eva Green be the lead actor, but on the other, it's kind of disappointing that they did make an effort to replace Gerard Butler, but they didn't really try.

Divergent

rating: **

review: I love how I really did hear people at the time praising the concept.  But this is strictly a cash grab attempt on the heels of the Twilight movies, and everyone involved knew it.  could have been better if they'd actually made a commitment.  Still more worth watching the complete series than the even less inspired Hunger Games movies, which are laughably just full of themselves.

Left Behind

rating: **

review: Kind of technically the last time Nicolas Cage was in something the studio actually expected someone to see while making it, a remake of a prior set of films based on the book series.  Too bad the whole budget was blown on Cage, although it's still interesting to think he made it at all.  In some alternate reality there're people who equally believe the whole series will be filmed someday, much like the Narnia books.

Selma

rating: **

review: Still one of my biggest cinematic disappointments.  Someone finally makes a movie about MLK, Jr., and it's barely even a movie.  

Rewatches September 2021

 I rewatched Jackie Brown and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (the latter because of its new, and very excellent, novel adaptation) from Quentin Tarantino.  In hindsight Jackie Brown is absolutely the beginning of Tarantino's mature career, when he wasn't just trying to be cool but make truly great movies, too.  The detour into Kill Bill led into a string of movies that truly went for the gusto.  There's no one who makes such complete statements as Tarantino, maximizing the skills of the considerable casts he assembles with the best storytelling and dialogue possible.  Visually there are better filmmakers, certainly, but Tarantino has been so consistent for so long and can do whatever he wants, and has.  And that began with Jackie Brown.

Also unofficial entries this month were Bram Stoker's Dracula (a highly underrated piece of Hollywood art) and Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (an undeserved poor reputation, though Robert De Niro again proves he's a great actor with a fairly limited range).

Now onto the catalog rewatches:

Red Cliff (2008-2009) John Woo's epic two-part meditation on the causes of war, including a defense of its necessity at times, is probably going to be very tough to top as my favorite Chinese movie.  I hadn't watched it since the first watch, so it was very much like watching it again for the first time, and again well worth it.

Rent (2005) In college the musical made sense, and in 2005 the movie did, too, but in 2021 it seems like a whole experience that was only possible from a community that only gazes back on itself, which at this moment feels too insular for me.  Still the right call to plug Rosario Dawson into a cast otherwise comprised of the original Broadway actors, including Idina Menzel before Frozen.

The Right Stuff (1983) I think even counting this one I have not technically stayed awake for the whole thing, which the filmmakers clearly saw as a potential problem the historic figures it chronicles couldn't figure out; the excellent cast makes them as lively as they can, but this is a long slog and most of it heads in a direction where the piloting skills that make these guys stand out isn't even necessary, so the story is one long effort to make the audience forget this.  But it's a worthy experience full of real heroes, including the guy who didn't even get to be an astronaut, Chuck Yeager, who drove an author and a director to distraction anyway, and rightfully so.

The Rocketeer (1991) After Tim Burton's Batman, comic book characters were seen as the next big thing, so Hollywood instantly sought whatever was available, and filmable, and the result was a decade that never once lived up to the potential, thanks in large part to relying on nostalgia acts with no connection to what people actually wanted to see.  Rocketeer is great, but it's exactly old-time movie serial material, with no effort at all to update it.  Indiana Jones it is not.

Russian Ark (2002) In the years since, Hollywood has been chasing the continuous tracking shot trick with increasing eagerness (Birdman, 1917), but this is the film that got there first.  Funny enough, it's exactly as Russian as you might expect, even going so far as to feel more like a Russian novel than a film, so keep that in mind (although in this realm you're probably more likely to be interested having it described that way, if you had any interest already).  For non-Russian, non-European audiences (read: American audiences) it's somewhat impenetrable.  But it's still a considerable achievement, and well worth experiencing at least once.  Like The Right Stuff, I still haven't technically made it all the way through, but this viewing left me more confident that I would be interested in doing so at a future date.

Rewatches August 2021

Moby Dick (1998) This is a TV miniseries starring Patrick Stewart as Captain Ahab, with Gregory Peck, who starred in the 1956 theatrical version as Ahab, also appearing.  Stewart had, two years prior, evoked and quoted from the Melville novel in Star Trek: First Contact, which made it ironic for him to end up in this production (as Picard, he eventually realizes revenge is a poor motivator).   I haven't really watched it too many times, so it was worth revisiting.  Stewart makes the role Shakespearean, as expected.  Ted Levine's Starbuck is the real star of the production, however, a counterpoint to Ahab that eclipses even Henry Thomas's Ishmael.

Molly's Game (2017) Jessica Chastain is one of my favorite actresses, and the script is from Aaron Sorkin, so I always assumed I'd love a movie pairing them together.  The opening, in which Molly Bloom explains the irrelevant end of her competitive downhill skiing career, is basically the only time either the script or Chastain really shine, however.  The rest is a gambling tale about a person making bad decisions and endlessly rationalizing them, and that's not really something that interests me.  This is the second time I've watched it.  Maybe a third would change my opinion.

Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975) A longtime favorite, but apparently one I really hadn't watched in a very long time, as this seemed like a pretty fresh experience with it.  All the classic bits, of course, but I found other things I'd completely forgotten about (I have more recent experience with The Album of the Soundtrack of the Trailer of the Film of Monty Python and the Holy Grail, which is something I used to listen to a lot), so that certainly made this rewatch rewarding.

Monty Python's Life of Brian (1979) This satire about Jesus Christ is pretty amusing and insightful, as Monty Python tends to be, but it isn't really, for me, as successful as Holy Grail, perhaps because it doesn't attempt to be nearly as silly, but rather as close to serious as Monty Python was ever likely to be.  For general historical satire, I guess I prefer Mel Brooks' History of the World, Part 1.

Moon (2009) It had been a long time since I watched this, too!  Sam Rockwell has turned into such a dependable actor, it's almost easy to take him for granted.  This was before "doomed astronaut" became a whole genre, by the way!  I also enjoy seeing the work of Duncan Jones when it still seemed everyone was going to love him forever.  But it turned out, basically, to be for one film.  Everyone loved him for one film.  (This one.)

Mrs. Miniver (1942) Since I'm still a home video kind of guy, my collection sometimes happens by adding movies because they're paired with other movies.  I spent a long time not watching Mrs. Miniver, so long I eventually completely forgot what movie its DVD was paired with, but now I can say I've corrected this oversight and that I quite enjoy Mrs. Miniver itself, starring Greer Garson in the title role, in a movie that apparently helped motivate the US into taking WWII seriously, which itself is a great way to sell the movie, as far as I'm concerned.  I still wish the title were different, though.

The Odyssey (1997) Another TV miniseries, a chance to revisit one of my favorite classics (actually, so is Moby-Dick).  The greatest takeaway this time is that Christopher Lee's cameo as Tiresias might as well have been an audition for Saruman (and for all I know, basically was).

Out of Sight (1998) George Clooney, once his career finally got into gear, ended up producing a lot of great material in a short amount of time.  This is the first of his classics, and it's just one of the many signs that we live in an age that finds it impossible to identify new classics that it still isn't recognized as such.  Costarring Jennifer Lopez before everyone decided she couldn't act because she decided to start a singing career.

The Perfect Storm (2000) I'm always on the fence as to whether this belongs in Clooney's classics list, but I'll always be a sucker for it, coming from Maine and loving seafaring adventures of one kind or another.  

Pete's Dragon (2016) I'm such a sucker for the director David Lowery, and am continually confused as to how difficult it is for his work to be appreciated, by both audiences and critics.  I loved Pete's Dragon the first time I watched it.  I love it even more now.  The most audacious and inexplicable live action remake of a Disney movie yet attempted.

The Pink Panther (2006) My dad loves the original Clousseau movies.  I'm partial to the Steve Martin versions.  I love Martin's Clousseau, who unlike the Peter Sellers version isn't just a sight gag machine but a lingual hilarity in on the joke of a Frenchman being played by, well, someone who isn't French.  Martin butchering the word "hamburger" is an all-time highlight for me, in and out of Clousseau lore.

The Pink Panther 2 (2009) I love the first one so much I was always uncertain about the second one.  This time I was able to cast aside all doubts.  I love this one, too.

The Princess Bride (1987) Another classic, and one that's generally accepted by most film fans.  I mean, I find it difficult to understand how anyone wouldn't love it.  In a lot of ways, a love letter to classic Hollywood (Cary Elwes is basically an ode to Errol Flynn as Westley, as Mel Brooks would later make all the more blatant in Robin Hood: Men in Tights), and as simple and pure a romance as was ever filmed, and a host of fantastic supporting performances.  My parents always dismissed Peter Falk because of something or other he did in his personal life, but I couldn't care less.  His framing scenes with Fred Savage are icing on this cake.  I later read the original book, which is just as rewarding an experience.

Prisoners (2013) The first time I watched Denis Villeneuve's Hollywood debut, I ended up falling asleep for most of it.  This is not, as many people try to contend when they fall asleep during a movie, a criticism; I fall asleep watching stuff all the time.  Turns out I missed a great deal of the movie.  This is an intricately designed movie, a classic that is yet another victim of the current inability to recognize new classics.  Villeneuve's later movies are absolutely reflected in the results, and I have renewed expectations for his Dune.  

R.I.P.D. (2013) In the years before Deadpool, no one really knew what to make of Ryan Reynolds, and so his work was easy to dismiss.  R.I.P.D. was dismissed as a ripoff of Men in Black, mostly because of the fairly similar premises.  But R.I.P.D. is very much its own thing.  Reynolds comes closest, pre-Deadpool, to finding the exact Deadpool vibe, but it's really Jeff Bridges getting to play his ornery cowboy act one more time that's the star of this show.  That and Marissa Miller.  (That whole bit got completely lost because nobody wanted to admit there was anything worth enjoying about the movie.  When the complete opposite is actually true.)

Also worth mentioning is that upon rewatching 2021's The Courier, I found that I love it even more.  I can't fathom how little appreciate this movie's gotten so far.  I just find movie reactions inexplicable in recent years.  Hopefully all this will even out eventually.

Iron Sky: The Coming Race (2019) Review

rating: ****

the story: Survivors of an apocalypse living on the moon discover their best hope for the future is inside the hollow Earth…and all they need to do is defeat Space Hitler to obtain it!

review: Obviously I don’t review a ton of movies as described above (nor watch them!). I am not a fan of schlock cinema. I don’t make a point even to watch it if it’s the subject of sarcastic commentary. On the surface Iron Sky: The Coming Race is pretty much exactly schlock cinema. You can watch it with the expectation that the results are going to be ridiculous, and be happy with it.

I haven’t even seen the first one yet. I did see Finnish director Timo Vuorensola’s first feature film, Star Wreck: In the Pirkinning, a madcap Star Trek parody, and have remained interested in what he does next. When the chance to see Coming Race came up, I figured it was worth a look.

It was!

For those keeping score, it’s very possible to see in the results direct nods to another sci-fi franchise. There’s a spaceship culled from Star Wars’ Millennium Falcon, the kind of nod that has surprisingly taken a lot longer to happen (outside Spaceballs’ Winnebago, of course!), more than forty years in the making. In fact, the career of Vuorensola suggests that we’re getting that much closer to actual responses to George Lucas, rather than mere attempts to cash in (which was easy enough to attempt…immediately).

The movie, with its political and even social satire (the riff on Steve Jobs and smartphone culture, employing a surprisingly effective performance from Tom Green of all people, is more successful than evoking Sarah Palin, the part critics who just wanted to dismiss the results fixated on), knows when to take things seriously and when to just unleash expectations (Space Hitler’s abruptly hilarious fate!)

Surprisingly or not, comic books, and comic book movies, often seem like they want to be exactly like this, and too seldom manage to pull it off, despite considerable, sometimes painfully desperate, efforts. 

Anyway, it’s the kind of movie that seems unlikely on basically every level, including the ability to be legitimately entertaining. It pulls it off!

Knight and Day (2010) Review

rating: ****

the story: A CIA operative has been set up, and in the process of clearing his name his life becomes entangled with an unlikely accomplice.

review: I will readily admit, until a rewatch a few weeks back I was as convinced as anyone that Knight and Day was nothing much writing about. In 2010 Tom Cruise was scrambling to put his career back on track, and when I saw this particular effort in theaters I thought it was a particularly desperate byproduct. I even dismissed costar Cameron Diaz, who has been a favorite since her film debut in The Mask, as forgettable.

I don’t believe any of that anymore.

If anything, Knight and Day has the potential of being a modern classic. It’s lighthearted and flippant concerning its surface action elements. The whole point is calculated screwball, which in older Hollywood days was the holy grail of romantic comedy. It’s a unique movie in Cruise’s career, which has in the decade or so since its release relied ever more heavily on straight action.

It’s really a waltz between Cruise and Diaz; eventually the tables are turned and it’s Diaz in control rather than the character who seems to have been one step ahead and her to be dozens of steps behind. 

And there’s plenty of support around them, too, something of an embarrassment. Maggie Grace, officially wrapping up her time on Lost, is there in one of her many tiny supporting roles (she’s also in the Taken movies, although you’d be forgiven to assume they’re all just Liam Neeson brandishing his action jones). Peter Sarsgaard (nearly always a villain, alas!), Viola Davis, Paul Dano actually feeling like he’s perfectly cast for a change, even Gal Gadot!

The director in charge of all this is the perennially criminally underrated James Mangold, who has proven himself a master of modern cinema. In fact, restoring Knight and Day, and this is not why I choose to champion it now but it’s a nice benefit, as a treasure would add an additional feather to his cap (Walk the Line, 3:10 to Yuma, Logan, Ford v Ferrari).

Too often today we reduce the art of moviemaking to…whatever’s not the box office blockbuster. There’s a huge tradition and a wide range of material out there. Recognizing achievements is a fine way to encourage the breadth of the medium to continue pursuing that range, rather than allowing it to narrow to “blockbuster” and “art film.”

That and acknowledging that movie stars continue to deliver, regardless of whatever happens in their personal life.

The Mauritanian (2021) Review

rating: ****

the story: A Guantanamo Bay detainee struggles to win his freedom.

review: There are plenty of people who would assume they know exactly how to respond to a movie with this subject matter. And yet, here is The Mauritanian being more or less released to little enough attention. 

It deserves better. It is of course an incredible story, and a true one, about the most controversial of the responses to 9/11 (no shortage of material there), and relentlessly sure that it is in fact representing an innocent man caught up in it.

Tahar Rahim plays the suspected terrorist Mohamedou Ould Slahi, Jodie Foster and Shailene Woodley his public defenders, and Benedict Cumberbatch the face of the prosecution, who quickly enough questions if he’s on the right side of justice.

Rahim became an instant favorite of mine from Mary Magdalene, where he played a surprisingly sympathetic Judas (so he has clearly found himself a type), Foster is Foster, Woodley has the trademark random moment where she seems to forget she’s not a model (for me, anyway; it popped up in the Divergent movies when she’s flying in a futuristic helicopter; I don’t get why she keeps getting away with it, although otherwise she’s a fine actress). For Cumberbatch, putting on another fine vocal performance, it’s an interesting companion to the equally compelling The Courier, also released this year. Zachary Levi has a supporting role as a part of the system that let everything happen to Slahi. It’s another chance to broaden his range, a full dramatic turn where he’s not a good guy.

At the end there’s footage of Slahi himself, which lends credibility to the idea that this story can be taken at face value, that the film’s positive opinion of him is a reflection of how positive he himself is, so many years after all this began, everything he endured.

The effect is to put a face on the whole thing, not just to say there’s been gross injustice or that everyone detained there has a similar story and is worth rooting for, but that so few stories have come out, much less one this seemingly unlikely. Many reviews have suggested it’s some sort of confusing mess, which it is not. Presumably so the critics don’t come off as sympathetic to a terrorist.

Foster’s character has a response to that kind of reasoning right in the movie. Don’t let such nonsense get in your way.

Judas and the Black Messiah (2021) Review

rating: ****

the story: Black Panthers organizer Fred Hampton becomes the target of the FBI.

review: The big draw, for me, is watching Daniel Kaluuya (Get Out) and LaKeith Stanfield. I assumed Stanfield, who has showed up in a number of interesting projects in recent years, was going to be my favorite of the two, but it’s actually Kaluuya who lights up the screen as Hampton, speaking with rapid fire, charismatic ease. Stanfield is usually pretty subdued, but his presence alone tends to be eloquent. Here he can’t really contend with Kaluuya.

The story is pretty even-handed, even though Stanfield plays the informant who eventually sets up Hampton’s assassination. We watch as Stanfield’s handler, played by Jesse Plemons, grapples with the morality of their assignment, working under the famously heavy hand of J. Edgar Hoover (Martin Sheen).

The results are perhaps best appreciated for what they’re not: Spike Lee’s BlacKkKlansman, a bafflingly lighthearted but on the whole similar story. I was never that enthusiastic about Lee’s film, but seeing this is all the more proof of how easy it is to improve upon. I get that Lee basically saw room for a farce (black guy infiltrates KKK!), but for a filmmaker so well known for his passion, the results were inert. 

Not so with Black Messiah. It even manages to get me onboard with Plemons, a supporting actor who’s gotten a steady amount of positive buzz recently. As the FBI liaison, he at last finds a context that makes sense to me. 

Hampton’s legacy is relatively small as a leader of the black community. His story plays out in the shadow of far more famous assassinations: MLK Jr., Malcolm X. The movie posits that Hampton was poised to succeed them, and that the FBI was desperate to prevent that from happening. That he was militant, at least in rhetoric, is where viewer interpretations of his potential will come into play, but the film itself stays away from judgment.

Suffice to say, his death still plays as tragedy. This is a story that needs telling, and this is a fine way to experience it. It might even be a great way. I will periodically revisit to ascertain.