Story: After witnessing corrupt cops kill civilians and recording it on her bodycam, rookie cop Alicia West goes on the run to expose them for what they've done, all while facing opposition from all sides, including the community she's returned to after years away.
Review: You don't need to be a rocket scientist to know that the cop-thriller with the title BLACK AND BLUE aims to tackle the often quickly discarded conversations about the relationship between the police and the African American community. That’s worthy material to explore, and if done right can generate some much-needed discussions – but wrapping those good intentions in something that can only be enjoyed by shutting off your brain and munching on your popcorn as cheap thrills play out and body counts rise is far from doing the job right.
At the center of it all Alicia West (Naomie Harris), who after doing several tours in Afghanistan with the Army comes back to her impoverished New Orleans neighborhood as a rookie police officer. Right there is material that makes for a good elevator pitch, as West finds herself caught between the two communities with systematic, deep-seated mistrust and animosity aimed at one another. Simply trying to do her best for everyone with honorable respect for law and community, she experiences the negatives of both sides, being wrongfully stopped by fellow police while off-duty, and receiving angry looks while diving into a confrontation between black citizens. She’s a black woman and a cop who doesn’t know where she fits into the equation, which could make for a riveting character study with a riveting backdrop.
It shouldn’t go without mentioning that there are moments early on where director Deon Taylor crafts some of the more challenging scenes from Peter A. Dowling’s script with a fierce, emotional approach. Black men being pinned down by the cops and having guns stuffed in their faces comes with a heightened sense of fear, as the men – such as Tyrese Gibson’s Milo – can’t help but shed a tear or struggle through their responses. There’s an attempt to tackle certain themes with a forceful lens, and it's a shame when things start to really ramp up and dive nose-first into the clunkier aspects this well-walked genre, with whatever brains the movie has being diminished to being simply backdrop.
Not too long after things are established West finds herself on the run from the cops after she stumbles upon several of them executing three young black men whom they had been running some drug deals with. From here on out, the film finds more solace in trying to deliver on taut, action movie thrills and only finds little time to pepper in some of the deeper subtexts it wants so hard to explore more deeply. For a long while, that means West is on the run as cops listlessly try to track her down, almost miraculously losing her or lazily giving up when she darts through an alley of leaps over a fence. As much as the movie presents certain cops as villains, it’s hard not to find them the least bit menacing when they’re too inept to hop a fence and continue the chase or spend too much stopping and searching their left when she clearly went right.
As these tepid, choppy actions scenes fail to generate any solid tension the story loses a lot of momentum as West and friend Milo decide how to go about getting her bodycam footage online, while a group of cops – led by Frank Grillo’s Terry Malone – figure out how to hunt her down. There’s a lot of figuring out next moves going on here, and in trying to make a story out of it all what becomes lost, more than anything, is some sort of hindrance to a point. While Grillo and some cops are the clear villains, they come off as even worse when Malone tricks head mob boss Darius (Mike Colter) into thinking West killed his cousin, with the latter then enlisting his forces to track her down. What we’re left with are two sides being depicted as made up of mostly vicious thugs bent on killing West, with any means to inspire some hope in her actions or both communities feeling crushed under the attempt at making a propulsive thriller where virtually everyone on screen is a villain bent on killing.
If there is room for hope it’s meant to come from Harris’ West, who is tremendously idealistic and inspires a few side characters like Milo, Reid Scott’s Officer Jennings, and Nafessa Williams’ Missy to change their ways and see things differently. The latter two get to come around at the end despite being put off to the side for much of the movie, with much of what makes BLACK AND BLUE rise above the clichés hinging solely on the power of Naomie Harris. A true tour de force, Harris leaps into the action with passion and confidence, continuing to prove why she’s a dramatic performer we should continue to admire and who is more than ready to handle her own run of action flicks. If there’s any reason to recommend this to anyone outside of the typical action-thriller fan, it’s to see Harris shine from scene to scene.
While hardly anyone in the cast is quite up to the power of Harris, this will perhaps change how audiences see actors like Gibson, Scott and Colter. The former is mostly seen as of late as Roman in the FAST AND FURIOUS movies, and ditching the humor from those flicks he shows a more vulnerable side to him that’s a welcome change of pace. Same goes for Scott, who after years playing the political asshat you hate to love on VEEP gets to stretch some dramatic muscles, with Colter going from steadfast hero Luke Cage to growling, imposing villain Darius. Unfortunately, too many characters are underdeveloped to the point where all that can be done is to point to some and go “Yep, there are bad people on both sides,” and then point at far fewer and say, “But see, not everyone is bad!”
With a few fine performances and glimmers of social commentary aside, what BLACK AND BLUE is more of come the finale is an apparent knock off of TRAINING DAY. West takes on the Ethan Hawke role as the rookie cop surrounded by villains on all sides but must persist through and stand above them all for the sake of law and order. The climax even finds West going into dangerous territory where “even cops don’t go” as a means of taking down the big villains, fit with a scene where she’s thrown into a tub, has a gun pointed at her face, and must prove she didn’t do the things she was accused of so that the real, two-faced cop can get his comeuppance.
By the end of this very familiar finale, the crowd I saw the film with had cheered several times as Harris went toe-to-toe with some corrupt cops, and I agree, seeing her throw herself into the fray so fiercely is solidly entertaining. Between the action thrills and the good intentions in trying to present heavy social themes, the only thing that's done correctly in BLACK AND BLUE proving the star power of Harris, and that alone is reason enough to power through. As for most everything else, the movie wants to be a smart cop-thriller but lacks enough brains and tension to be either very smart or consistently thrilling that could've been so much more, but settles for the bare minimum.