Review of American Violet (2008) by Edward V — 03 May 2009

The lead actress (Nicole Beharie) gives an amazing performance, and the message of the movie is important and should be heard, but I was left greatly disappointed by the movie. Based on a true story, the movie portrays the war on drugs from the perspective of one of its victims, a single African-American mother who is charged with being a drug dealer but then told that she can go back to her children if she pleads guilty to a lesser charge.

Her experience is typical among African-Americans in her small Texas town, but atypically she decides to fight back (with help from the ACLU). We find out the reason for her arrest -- federal money goes to counties based on number of drug convictions, and the District Attorney knows that the county's poor African-Americans will plead guilty to lesser charges instead of incurring the cost and risk of going to trial even if there is little or no evidence against them.

The movie provides a powerful indictment of both the war on drugs and the role of power, race and class in our legal system. Unfortunately, it fails as a movie -- it is a highly predictable movie with little intrigue and absolutely no subtlety, an artless and somewhat clumsy movie that feels more like it was made for TV than for the big screen.

I am deeply sympathetic to the political message of the film, and Nicole Beharie is a highly talented actress who does as much with her character as the script allows, I only wish that the director of the film was so talented.