3 Short Paragraphs: Black and Blue

2019, Deon Taylor (The Intruder) -- Amazon

I am hesitant to talk about the Black Lives Matter movement. I consider myself a visible ally, but also I am very very aware of my privilege as a Straight White Male. This summer has challenged all of us of privilege, reminding us that we cannot just sit back and hope it gets better. And yet... I still do. I just find it hard to be the person who Acts. But I am not afraid to be confronted by it and acknowledging, especially in the fictional platform. The trailer of Black and Blue came out some time ago, long before the latest atrocities happened, and I liked the Gauntlet aspect it put the main character in, a young black, female cop in New Orleans who witnesses other cops killing someone, and ends up on the run herself.

New Orleans already has a rather checkered past when it comes to police corruption and visible racism. Alicia (Naomie Harris; Skyfall) escaped her past when she was young, but returns to her home town a recently graduated police officer. We're introduced to her being profiled while jogging. "She's blue..." says one of the white officers, by way of apology, as if she is supposed to understand. She doesn't. She shouldn't. But the prejudice of her job also carries over to her old neighbourhood, showing us that the bitterness held against the police is colour-blind. If you are blue, you are blue, and you are tainted. Sounds very very relevant right now. But she wants the faces from her past to see she is different.

Alicia blunders into a killing by some cliche corrupt narcotics cops, and is suddenly on the run. She is trapped behind enemy lines, ratted out to more corrupt cops and also to the gang leader, manipulated into believing his nephew was murdered by her, not the thugs with badges. So many layers of anger and bitterness and prejudice play out in this movie. It was not as much a gauntlet play through as I hoped, but the pit-of-your-stomach stress is there all the way through, as she has so very few people she can believe in, not her fellow officers or familiar faces from her past. But that body cam on her chest holds all the cards, tells all the truth, if only she can get it into the station and into the hands of the right people.