Judas and the Black Messiah (2021)

Directed by: Shaka King | 127 minutes | biography, drama | Actors: Daniel Kaluuya, LaKeith Stanfield, Jesse Plemons, Dominique Fishback, Ashton Sanders, Algeen Smith, Darrel Britt-Gibson, Lil Rel Howery, Dominique Thorne, Martin Sheen, Amari Cheatom, Khris Davis, Ian Duff, Caleb Eberhardt, Robert Longstreet, Amber Chardae Robinson, Ikechukwu Ufomadu, James Udom, Nick Fink, Mell Bowser, Alysia Joy Powell, Nicholas Velez, Aj Carr

We all know Martin Luther King, Malcolm X too. But what about all those other fighters for the civil rights movement who rose to make a stand in the 1960s? For example, what about Angela Davis, Bobby Seale, Huey P. Newton, Stokely Carmichael, Eldrigde Cleaver and Fred Hampton? What did and do they stand for? Hampton’s tragic story deserves to be told and has been nominated for a film for some time. Separately, the brothers Lucas and Will Berson had been working on a screenplay since 2014, but a film adaptation only really started after Ryan Coogler and Shaka King got involved. Producer Charles D. King was agreed to fund half of the project and with Daniel Kaluuya and LaKeith Stanfield, two very talented, dynamic and appealing actors were found to play respectively Hampton and William O’Neal, the man who was responsible for his downfall. Footage from a confrontational TV documentary from January 1989, in which O’Neal revealed his side of the story, was used as a peg to hang the story from and put the events in context.

Chicago, late 1960s. Just twenty-year-old Fred Hampton (Daniel Kaluuya) is the charismatic frontman of the local chapter of the Black Panthers. A visionary and a great orator, who preaches a revolution and does not shy away from drawing weapons to strengthen his pursuit of self-determination for the black population. He does this from the socialist ideology. Moreover, Hampton turns out to be a connector who convincingly unites other groups of minorities in Chicago, such as the Latinos and ‘white trash’ groups, to fight together against the oppressor. That makes him influential and radical and thus an extremely interesting target of the FBI led by J. Edgar Hoover (Martin Sheen). William O’Neal (LaKeith Stanfield) is about the same age, but steers clear of politics. With minor criminal offences, he tries to work himself up, using a fake FBI badge. When he is arrested, the FBI offers him, in the person of Roy Mitchell (Jesse Plemons), a possibility of a reduced sentence. To do this, however, he must go undercover within the Black Panther Party, so that the FBI can get closer to Hampton through him and then “neutralize” him. O’Neal, a born opportunist, is seduced by the promises Mitchell makes to him and by the banknotes he holds out to him. But once invaded Hampton’s inner circle, he comes into serious conflict with himself.

‘Judas and the Black Messiah’ (2021) is both a dramatized double biography of both Hampton and O’Neal and a nuanced reconstruction of the events, as well as a tense and vivid yet fatalistic tragedy. Filmmaker Shaka King stays close to the real events and brilliantly recreates the atmosphere of Chicago in the late 1960s. The decoration, sets and decors are spot on and, thanks to a great, very swinging soundtrack, come out even better. But ‘Judas and the Black Messiah’ is mainly a showcase for the fantastic protagonists, Daniel Kaluuya and LaKeith Stanfield. Each in their own way they steal the show here. Kaluuya gives his character a lot of layers. His Hampton is enigmatic on the one hand, but approachable on the other. He can reason with fire and passion, but in his contact with his beloved Deborah (enchanting role of the equally excellent Dominique Fishback) he is sweet, tender and even a bit shy. He wages his battle on the cutting edge, but at the same time proves himself skilled in removing the barriers that lie between the various minority groups. Kaluuya rightly deserved the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor. Stanfield was also nominated in that category (strange why not one of the two received a lead role nomination) and definitely deserved the coveted statuette. His role is perhaps less flashy than Kaluuya’s and he is also the Judas figure, so our sympathy is not with him from the outset. Nevertheless, the battle that O’Neal wages with himself hits us hard. The calculating O’Neal is certainly no less tragic than Hampton. In fact, you somehow understand why he decides to team up with the FBI: to save his own skin. He’s not an orator like Hampton, who uses fierce, passionate speeches to captivate us, so Stanfield has to make do with his posture and especially his looks. Like no other, he knows how to use it to give us a glimpse of the rollercoaster of emotions that take place under the skin of O’Neal. You can constantly see that doubt in his eyes: have I made the right choice; am I a traitor; what if it turns out that I’m making out with the enemy? Guilt, shame, regret, frustration and sadness are constantly vying for preeminence in that unfathomable gaze.

As rich and sophisticated the characters Hampton and O’Neal are, that’s how short-sighted are the FBI agents in this film. The Black Panthers invariably call agents ‘pigs’, which is probably why King chose to portray them as fat pigs, with puffy heads and always eating, drinking or a good cigar nearby. That stereotyping is the only blemish on this otherwise blistering and powerful film, which shows once again that the struggle of the African American population for equal treatment is far from over. Recent developments around #BlackLivesMatter show that there is still a lot of work to be done. The epilogue of ‘Judas and the Black Messiah’ impresses us once again: everything we have seen really happened, many lives have been destroyed in the bud and the battle rages on. If you haven’t already received this film, it will undoubtedly do so in the credits!