Saw it last night
hard to sit here and write and say that I "liked" it, simply because what is there really to like about seeing an injustice against your people portrayed on screen?
but it was a POWERFUL piece of cinema for sure which I rate damn near a 10.
like some have said, I was not familiar with this story in American history, so i had no context whatsoever. At minimum I learned that part of history and appreciate that. I sat there and got angry/mad/frustrated at all the parts that I feel I was supposed to react that way towards. To back up for a second, i DEFINITELY appreciated how she opened the movie with the history lesson re: the Great Migration/White Flight. Important to lay that groundwork broadly in telling this story, even if it didn't get into the specific details how it affected Detroit; truthfully it was the same script in all the cities that suffered through rioting based on racial tensions.
To address the "horror" movie topic I will say this: You can't be black in America and at times NOT feel like your existence isn't something out of a horror movie. Real talk. No this movie isn't horror like "Get Out", but by the time we get to the epicenter of the movie, the nitty gritty between the officers, and the people in that hotel. It was horrifying, there is just really no other way to put it.
This IMO is where Bigelow won. The wrap up at the end explained via text that there were varying accounts about what (really) happened that night in that hotel, and the story was put together based on a number of accounts but (and let me be very clear when I say this): AS A FILMMAKER SHE MADE IT VERY CLEAR IN HER MIND WHAT HAPPENED THAT NIGHT, AND IT DID NOT PAINT THE POLICE AS GOOD GUYS BY ANY STRETCH OF THE IMAGINATION!
She didn't make this movie, and put a white savior in it, she didn't make these pigs in any way sympathetic, and showed throughout the movie how THE SYSTEM is stacked vs Black folks, and works in favor of whites on all levels. Now maybe there are a bunch of us that don't need to see a movie to reinforce this; i get that. But she could have easily taken those accounts and somehow turned some of those pigs into 'good guys', and present a story that showed both sides of how it went down so as to leave the viewer feeling like, "well the cops were wrong, but i understand how they made their choices"....NO that's not what she did. The story unfortunately played out exactly how all these police involved killing of black men & women plays out in my head but never get the conclusive proof, because these guys already have their stories together (he reached for my gun, I felt threatened, etc.)
Also the notion that black women were erased from the movie, is the most nonsensical dispute with the movie. I'll admit when i first saw the trailer, I got a bit caught up in that hype and even posted that maybe earlier in this thread. But now having seen it, in terms of the flashpoint of the story, black women weren't necessary for that, and dare i say if they were included....let's just say the way these cops were, they probably would have done unspeakable things to them, that I don't think any of us really needed to see which would have opened up another controversy. Black women were in the film, trust; they were not critical to the movie's central story. Reading homegirl's tweet and review, I'll bet she had that written before she even saw the movie. Amazing..The movie was far from police brutality porn. Never felt exploitative to me, and certainly not like a Tarantino flick where he's dropping N-bombs just to drop them, or any of the slave movies that wash/rinse/repeat whips and chains. The movie isn't pretty for sure, but it definitely wasn't 'soulless'.
Really loved the way it was shot too. Doesn't look like a movie that was made in 2017, but in 1967.
I learned some history last night, that otherwise I would not have.
