Review of Blindspotting (2018) by Bob K — 21 Jul 2018

5/5.

This is the most extraordinary and important film I've seen in a long time. It struck so close to home, it broke our windows. (h/t Sophie).

God I love Oakland filmmakers, because they love their city. The opening montage of local sites is beautiful, and sparked rounds of applause from the audience I sat with - at the Grand Lake Theatre, Grand and Lake Park Ave, Oakland. Several similar medleys followed.

Blindspotting has tensions between black and white, locals and newbie hipsters, cops and black residents, and "tough guys" and their beloved women. And more than that. Take a good look at the poster, featuring intertwined stripes of Collin and Miles, black and white, best friends since they were 12. They will collide, like everything else in this movie, and that moment is breathtaking, absolutely brilliant, with nuance coupled with power unheard of on the screen.

Collin's impending end of probation provides the dramatic tension behind everything else that happens, including waiting for a light to turn green, so he can make it back to the halfway house by curfew. During that wait, he sees a black man gunned down by a white cop. Since Collin is waved away from the scene by the police, we keep waiting for the other shoe to drop for the rest of the movie. What will he do, or how will he be provoked? Nothing obvious ensues, because this movie is too damn good. But when a confrontation finally occurs, we get a monologue from Collin, delivered in the kind of hip-hop familiar to any "Hamilton" fan, that is devastating.

I don't live in Oakland, but in the same county, as removed from those streets as possible, but not so many miles away. Why did this movie affect me so? Because the climax occurs in my neighborhood, not in Oakland. Between Collin and my neighbor, almost literally. With a cop like the one who coached my son in little league.

And damn, this movie is funny. Collin and Miles are like a great comedy duo, and will have you reeling from gut churning tension to gut busting laughter.

It's amazing how much is packed in. The title refers to Collin's ex-girlfriend's psychology studies, how they apply to his incarceration, and how she perceives him afterward. There's a split-screen scene between them on the phone that is so tender and painful. So much to see in only 95 minutes.

Please go see this movie?