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Judas and the Black Messiah

A docudrama filled with history from the tumultuous '60's.

Judas and the Black Messiah

What most of us know going into Judas and the Black Messiah is that the 1969 Illinois chairman of The Black Panther party, Fred Hampton (Daniel Kaluuya), is destined to be assassinated like his counterpart Malcolm X and in the spirit of Martin Luther King. What we don’t know is that Fred was only 21, shy, a father-to-be, and a warm-hearted devotee of human rights.

Director Shaka King’s docudrama is strongest when Fred interacts with his fellow revolutionaries like Bill O’Neal (LaKeith Stanfield), albeit Bill will turn out to be an informant for the FBI and contribute to Fred’s death. As Fred encourages his colleagues to violent overthrow, he is light as air in his embrace of those closest to him, especially his love and future mother of his boy, Dominique (Deborah Johnson).

Writers King and Will Berson carefully show the ambivalences that permeate the parlous circumstances, such as Fred’s awareness of his life in danger versus the blinding need to put himself in harm’s way to further the cause for liberation of Black people. And the torn allegiance of Bill to his role as informant versus his growing affection for the movement. And agent Roy Mitchell’s (Jesse Plemons) lack of affect when he guides Roy to Fred’s death but our suspicion that he is becoming sympathetic to the cause.

The camera is our guide--it takes us up close to the participants, making us as claustrophobic as they while the doom slowly approaches. In other words, drama is present even in the cold reality of bloody history.

Kaluuya and Stanfield should be nominated for Oscars as should the film. Yet the real winner will be the audience, which will have a front row seat to history and a heavy heart for those brave young idealists who gave the full measure to their dreams.

Judas and the Black Messiah

Director: Shaka King (Newlyweeds),

Screenplay: King, Will Berson (Scrubs)

Cast: Daniel Kaluuya (Get Out) LaKeith Stanfield (Knives Out)

Run Time: 2h 6m

Rating: R

John DeSando, a Los Angeles Press Club first-place winner for National Entertainment Journalism, hosts WCBE’s It’s Movie Time and co-hosts Cinema Classics. Contact him at JohnDeSando62@gmail.com

John DeSando holds a BA from Georgetown University and a Ph.D. in English from The University of Arizona. He served several universities as a professor, dean, and academic vice president. He has been producing and broadcasting as a film critic on It’s Movie Time and Cinema Classics for more than two decades. DeSando received the Los Angeles Press Club's first-place honors for national entertainment journalism.