For those unfamiliar with the premise, Judas and the Black Messiah tells the far too unknown story of a young car thief named William O'Neal (Lakeith Stanfield) who is arrested for impersonating an FBI agent and stealing multiple cars in Chicago in late 1968. The FBI agent (Jesse Plemons) that picks O'Neal up offers to set him free if he agrees to infiltrate the Chicago chapter of the Black Panther Party and provide the feds with intel on their prolific young leader Fred Hampton (Daniel Kaluuya)-who has been deemed the single greatest terrorist threat to the United States by FBI head J. Edgar Hoover (Martin Sheen). O'Neal agrees and before too long, he ends up with a prominent role in the Panthers as Hampton's driver and director of personal security. In late 1969, the FBI became increasingly concerned about Hampton's impact in Chicago with his formation of the Rainbow Coalition-that unified organizations from every race behind an anti-capitalist/pro-socialist platform that targeted their shared oppressors in the government and law enforcement as well as his meteoric rise within the national hierarchy of the Panthers. Weaponizing their increased fear, the feds intimidate O'Neal into providing them with a map of Hampton's apartment and on December 4th 1969, Hampton was murdered by a group of men consisting of FBI agents and Chicago police officers while sleeping in his own bed.
Judas and the Black Messiah is a reflection of the power a fact-based film can wield when its done correctly. Co-writer/director Shaka King-in what his remarkably only his second movie-understands the storytelling limits he has in two hours and pulls off the difficult feat of providing a condensed, entertainment-conscious version of history that doesn't feel skimpy or sanitized. Through much of the first two acts, the audience is provided a taste of Hampton's diplomatic skills and the fiery public speeches that highlighted his socialist politics, the tactics that the feds and local cops used to antagonize the Panthers (constant harassment, escalating potentially violent situations, using several moles to get members killed) and a look at O'Neal's internal conflict between believing in Hampton's cause and trying to save his own ass by reporting back to the FBI. In the final act, the story slightly shifts to providing increasingly disturbing insight into the smear campaign/blatantly illegal behavior the authorities used to go after Hampton including the extensive blackmailing of O'Neal and how Hoover arrives at the conclusion that the only solution to their Hampton problem is to murder him. Particularly in a story that's as rich and complicated as this, you're not going to touch upon every detail about the events or people involved when dramatizing a real life story-but King comes damn close to doing so while also making a riveting piece of art out of a particularly maddening and sickening piece of American history.
Rounding out the tremendous success of King's film is the unbelievable work of his cast. There are a not pair of actors working today that could've brought Hampton and O'Neal to life better than Kaluuya and Stanfield. Kaluuya simply commands the screen by combining the domineering magnetism present in Hampton's public speaking/diplomatic work with the quietly introspective nature he displayed in his personal life while Stanfield turns in a deeply nuanced performance as a man living a treacherous double life who becomes more and more visibly tormented by his betrayal of Hampton as the film progresses. If I were running the show, they'd be at the front of the line for Oscar nominations and have very strong odds of taking home the statues.
While Kaluuya and Stanfield are understandably garnering most of the attention for their contributions to the project, the supporting cast does similarly terrific work that deserves mass recognition. Dominique Fishback gives a beautifully understated performance as Deborah Johnson-Hampton's girlfriend who was pregnant with his son at the time he was assassinated-who is the only person in Hampton's orbit that forces him to look at how his revolutionary status effects the wellbeing of the people that care about him, Plemons gives a bit of a unique spin on his traditional villain role as O'Neal's FBI contact who isn't nesscairly completely on board with all the actions of his superiors at the bureau and in only a few scenes, Sheen is able to establish Hoover as a sinister presence whose unflinching evil quietly looms over the entire movie. Getting such strong performances out of the secondary players in the cast is the ultimate unsung sign that a movie is something special and any deep dive conversation about the impact of this film will hopefully reflect how valuable their efforts were in helping cementing the greatness on display here.
As this country attempts to finally reckon with its extensive history of systemic racism and providing revisionist history that shifts blame away from the powerful white figures that were responsible for many of its most damning chapters, having a film like Judas and the Black Messiah enter the world could be key in helping start that long overdue journey down the path of enlightenment. The reality is that whatever brief mentions of the Black Panthers and Hampton have been taught in the schools that even bothered to invoke their names over the years portrayed the organization as the black answer to the Ku Klux Klan-which is the exact line of thinking the government floated out at the time to justify the war they started against the Panthers. We weren't told that Hampton and other leaders of the Panthers were key civil rights figures that believed in the importance of unifying people from all races, providing underserved communities with services they didn't have access to (ex: opening free medical clinics/education centers and providing breakfast for kids) and preaching to the masses that the roots of racial injustice stem from the oppressive structure of capitalism.
Judas and the Black Messiah helps expose those misconceptions about the Panthers for the bigoted, manufactured falsehoods that they are and provides a much-needed look at how and why Hampton's race/political views resulted in him being labeled as a terrorist by his own government. Anybody that's not in denial about the current realities of the world understands that the issues Hampton was fighting against are still just as prevalent now as they were in the early days of post-Segregation that are depicted here and it's incredible that a mainstream Hollywood film was able to deliver an uncompromisingly brutal look at this relentless struggle while still succeeding as a brilliantly constructed/acted/shot piece of cinema. In short, Judas and the Black Messiah is a straight up masterpiece that sets the bar absurdly high for the rest of the 2021 cinematic year.
Grade: A
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