“We live in an age of boundless expectations. An age where nothing seems beyond our grasp, and yet, this is an age of great responsibility. Yours is a generation to whom the torch of leadership will soon be passed. The next Century will belong to you. You have a chance to make it a century of justice, hope and opportunity. The time to prepare for that responsibility is now.” – Speaker
Number of Times Seen – 1 (11 Nov 2020)
Brief Synopsis – After a Black honors student is shot by police in New York, questions arise as to how this could have happened.
My Take on it – This is a film that I came across by accident and was quite intrigued to see what it was all about.
The film has a great message which unfortunately isn’t realized well enough due to the way that they present things in a sub-standard or mediocre way.
The fact that the message of the story is still unfortunately relevant today helps a bit in keeping things more engaging to watch even if things don’t go places that one would expect.
The story is watered down far too much and certain parts seem truncated instead of expanded on which hurts things a lot.
The story deals with the fact that no matter how hard people try, racial issues are not simple to ignore.
The characters are not developed well enough and the superficial nature of the characters doesn’t manage to help make things as poignant as one might hope.
This is truly a tragic story, but the bigger tragedy is that the film never manages to find a way to make things more powerful and poignant along the way.
Bottom Line – Mediocre film with a powerful message that resonates even today. The film tries to show how racial issues are always present no matter the situation and how things could escalate to that point. The story is too truncated and they never really manage to develop the character well enough in order to make the viewer understand things on more than a superficial level. The story is quite tragic, but what even more tragic is the fact hat they never find a way to make things more poignant.
MovieRob’s Favorite Trivia – Edmund Perry, a Harlem resident, was shot to death by Lee Van Houten, a 24-year-old plainclothes policeman, on June 12, 1985 when he was 17 years old. (From Wikipedia)
Rating – BAFTA Worthy (5/10)
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