In December 1969, a tactical unit at the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office, the Chicago Police Department and the FBI performed a raid on an apartment in the city. Their target was Fred Hampton, 21, a revolutionary socialist and leader of Black Panther. The FBI had identified it as a threat a few years earlier, and its removal was part of the FBI’s own focus on eliminating Black activists’ efforts to tackle the anti-Black inequality and injustice that defined so many American culture. J. Edgar Hoover, the FBI’s first Director, was actively involved in the racial suppression of Black voices and Hampton’s murder was part of the centre’s Counter-Intelligence Program, targeting members of the Black Panther organization in a series of covert projects with ‘ the aim of defamation. domestic political institutions.
In “Judas and the Black Messiah”, premiered last week at the Sundance Film Festival, director and cowriter Shaka King deals with the final few years of Hampton’s life as the Chicago unit of the Black Panthers takes over infiltrated by FBI informant, William O’Neal. This version of the story presents it as an infiltration drama. Lakeith Stanfield is O’Neal, the petty criminal who enters the FBI’s machinery as the initially unconscious informant who will settle in Daniel Kaluuya’s Hampton, and his inner circle. They are, respectively, the Judas and the Black Messiah from the film’s title, as they orbit each other towards the inevitable conclusion – the savior’s betrayal and the traitor’s empty distress.
Various versions of this film have been in the works since 2014, and it’s easy to understand why. The power of film to spread awareness of history remains key, and this is work that leaps off screen, proclaiming its significance. It is important that Hampton’s cruel murder, and his previous years of activism, receive Hollywood treatment that privileges his blackness and counteracts the old mythologies of who gets this kind of big screen acclaim. But it is an account of the story that comes armed, and in some ways a burden, with the knowledge that Hollywood’s treatment of someone like Fred Hampton will inevitably feel more sanitary than revolutionary.
There are several key scenes where Daniel Kaluuya’s oratory skills are displayed as he gives voice to aspects of Hampton’s disappointment in the racial state of America. Here are some of his strongest scenes, giving voice to Hampton’s electricity. Even within that recurring motif of oratory as thematic enlightenment, “Judas and the Black Messiah” avoids paying particular attention to the specificity of Hampton’s politics. Hampton’s anti -apitalistic socialism was central to his ideology, but the script’s perspective of his political ideology is an ambiguous version of ‘things are bad’ rather than a reflection of the particular rhetoric that indicated his interest . As the film frames the story as one of a rival organization (the FBI v. Black Panthers), the indefiniteness doesn’t spend the momentum and yet it feels like a missed opportunity to engage with exactly why Hampton threatens the FBI and white America in general. Yet, even the sanitary Hampton is perceptive enough to aspire to the larger socio-political dynamics at work.
Rather than explicit engagement with Hampton’s ideological interests, the screenplay by director Shaka King and Will Berson presents this story as an inversion of familiar narratives like “Donnie Brasco” or “The Departed”. Instead of rooting for the state-sponsored informant, we are increasingly alarmed at the ways in which the FBI’s handling of O’Neal reveals the power imbalances and racial prejudices of the alleged law enforcement agencies . Thematically it’s an interesting riff on a familiar genre, and in action it turns “Judas and the Black Messiah” into a film that seems to wrestle with different iterations of itself.
The film’s title is a captivating take on genius who uses the biblical reference to establish an outstanding parallel between O’Neal – Hampton’s relationship. But the film loses a little of that resonance when so much of it finds the two men apart. The separation does not spend the film. The scenes with the FBI are the least compelling, but they give Lakeith Stanfield the opportunity to play O’Neal’s psychological torture very effectively. In writing, O’Neal is not such a different character as Hampton. But as performed, Stanfield turns his body into a weapon and a shield as he exposes O’Neal’s anxiety to a performance that consumes all parts of his body. He moves like a man on the brink of collapse.
The separation of Messiah Hampton and his betrayer gives the film the closest thing to moments of peace in the scenes where Hampton courtes Deborah Johnson, beautifully played by Dominique Fishback. Their early scenes together present crucial moments of joy that make Hampton’s eventual murder even more effective. And the final, lengthy scene between the two men is a beautiful moment of uninspired feelings. But in separating the titular men for so much of his running time, “Judas and the Black Messiah” presents itself with an opportunity to juxtapose how two different notions of black masculinity find themselves at the mercy of white supremacy.
And so, the film is one that exists on powerful and kinetic moments that are married to schematic sensibilities. The metatextual quality is almost to the way it seems to explode in so many directions, giving the audience so much to contemplate even as it remains eerily restless. Sean Bobbitt’s cinematography and Kristian Sprague’s sharp editing capture the frenetic nature of the revolution and present the coolness of the FBI in effective contrast, even when it feels like the film is spending too much time in the latter that might be better devote to exploring the Panthers.
There’s a lot going on here even in the midst of the feeling that, at the end, there seems to be so much more to explore. It’s a paradox that makes sense considering Hampton’s complex legacy. In the midst of complications – like the way Kaluuya never reads at the age of 21, or the way the film never engages with O’Neal’s intentions despite Stanfield’s great work – the story’s unique perspective, technical burdens and ‘ At the central three performances feel more important. This is a film that stays put, even when and especially when it seems to be struggling with different parts of itself. As far as Hollywood encounters history, “Judas and the Black Messiah” feels like a necessary and worthwhile episode.
Judas and the Black Messiah, which premiered at the recently-concluded Sundance Film Festival, will be available for streaming on digital platforms later this month.