Blindspotting (Carlos López Estrada, 2018)

[Brian C]

This is a different and far less tedious movie than the trailer makes it look. The marketing in general - featuring, for example, the pullquote "IF EVER THERE WAS A MOVIE TO OPEN AMERICA'S EYES, THIS IS IT" - really scans ostensibly well-meaning, gritty social drama that nonetheless hits all the expected narrative and thematic beats in a way that makes actually watching the movie superfluous.

As it turns out, though, it's mostly engaging and insightful and altogether a vivid look at the pressures of living under an oppressive criminal justice system ... and damn, there I go making it sound like an ostensibly well-meaning, gritty social drama. But it doesn't play like that, because the two leads bring warmth and humor to their roles, and the narrative is loose enough not to feel at all schematic.

Until.

Unfortunately, the film's climax is such a fatal misstep that it just about sinks the whole film. I don't really know how to describe it except as a case of straight-up wish fulfillment, the kind of thing a writer where a writer watches the news and says, "you know what would be great is if..." It really doesn't work on any level, either conceptually or in terms of execution, and in fact more than a couple people in my screening broke out laughing at it. I didn't share their reaction, but I understood it. Then the film ends on a note of forced jocularity that feels like a non-sequitur given what we've seen.

I still feel the movie is worth seeing, because its virtues are considerable, and if nothing else, it brings an openhearted perspective to a problem that doesn't really get very much attention. But I can't help but be disappointed all the same.

[DarkImbecile]

Until.

I didn't have quite as much of an issue with the climactic moment in Blindspotting — though I agree it's the weakest part of an otherwise better film — maybe because the rest of the depiction of life in Oakland through the protagonists' eyes is already so vivid and colorful that it only seemed like a minor escalation of that already heightened dynamic (see the dream sequence or the jogging hallucination, for example).

While this isn't a great movie, I slightly prefer it to Sorry to Bother You, the summer's other messy, overly-stuffed-with-ideas Oakland-based examination of race and capitalism that marked a feature directing debut and a noteworthy cast of minority actors. Where Blindspotting has a moment or two in which the conceptual reach exceeds the grasp of the writers/stars and director, that same unchecked hit-or-miss ambition describes pretty much all of STBY. The sheer volume of increasingly wild ideas works to the extent it does in that film partially because the characters are more archetypes and concept-delivery vehicles than people, whereas the more surreal and credulity-stretching moments in this film perhaps stand out in sharper contrast to the (relatively) grounded character work and performances by Daveed Diggs and Rafael Casal.

I was impressed with Casal in particular, whose performance covers a lot of ground between the performative loudmouth, the fairly gentle husband and father, and the hard, sometimes violent Oakland nativist; Diggs brings a quiet vulnerability to his role as a felon trying to figure out which parts of his former life to carry ahead with him and which to leave behind. López Estrada brings what feels like the appropriate level of stylistic flash to the script's willingness to play with reality and weave purposefully heightened and (mostly) humorous episodes, like the recap of Collin's assault and the opening scene in either the best or worst Uber ride ever, with more grounded concerns like complying with a probation officer or trying to mend a romantic relationship on life support. The editing has a rhythm that feels in tune with both the fun soundtrack and the regular tonal shifts, and keeps things moving along at a pace that rarely lags.

Much like Boots Riley's movie, there's enough talent being shown off here in front and behind the camera — even if only in intermittent flashes — that I'm both glad I saw the film and interested to follow those involved, even if I can't endorse the feature in its entirety.

[pzadvance]

The director, Carlos López Estrada, was a classmate and friend in film school. Very excited to see this film get its own thread - if MoviePass hadn't been short circuiting I would've seen this multiple times already! Can't wait.