Review of The Hate U Give (2018) by Jonathan G — 02 Nov 2018

As soon as I saw the opening to this film, I knew I was in for something truly special. The film opens up with a black father named Maverick explaining to his 2 young children what they should do in a situation if they are ever stopped by a cop.

This opening alone is fantastic and gives the audience a unique perspective for someone to understand the fear and the dynamic of what it means to be a person of color and have fear for your life over something as minimal as being pulled over by a police officer.

The film itself is extremely well directed and written, Amandla Stendberg gives a wonderful performance as Starr Carter, her charming presence and innocence to a harsh and cruel reality is phenomenal and completely Oscar Worthy.

The film touches on an extremely delicate social issue regarding unarmed black people being shot and killed by police officers. Star is given a ride home from her childhood friend Khalil but he is pulled over by a police officer, the officer initially seems patient and quiet but Khalil tests his patience by questioning his reasoning for stopping him.

Starr has been prepared for this situation her entire life so she knows the danger Khalil can put them both in but Khalil continues to dismiss her fears. The officer asks Khalil to step out of the car and keep his hands where he can see them as the officer goes back to the car to run his information.

Khalil then reaches into the car for his hairbrush not taking the situation seriously but is quickly shot when the officer mistakes the brush for a gun much to Starr's horror. Many questions come into play here for many viewers, Why doesn't Khalil just cooperate? Why didn't he listen to Starr? Why didn't he keep his hands in view of the officer? Why didn't the officer give Khalil a warning when he saw thought he had a weapon? Would the officer have reacted this way with someone who was white? All these questions are never given a clear answer, does that mean the police officer was racist? Not necessarily, he was doing his job and told Khalil to keep his hands where he can keep them, and this is happening during the night so maybe he couldn't see the brush clearly.

Did Khalil deserve to die because he didn't listen though? Absolutely not, he's a kid who got stopped for something minimal like failing to signal, how was he supposed to know something like this was going to happen? The film could easily come across as biased to many but the film does give us a police officer's perspective and the fear one may have when performing their duty.

In a world where many are split based on politics, race, sexuality, etc. It's nice to see a film that offers a unique perspective on an issue many are horrified by that we as a society have grown accustomed to seeing more often as time goes by.