Judas and the Black Messiah, written and directed by Shaka King, took me a few days to mull over, because its storytelling methods are quite unorthodox. You’d be forgiven for leaving the theater unsatisfied after seeing this impressively original movie, because whereas we expect historical dramas to embellish their facts, King seems to have, if anything, pared down his content, keeping his characters oddly flat and minimizing our engagement with their assorted concerns.
Fred Hampton (Daniel Kaluuya) is the titular black messiah, an anti-capitalist revolutionary who never wavers in his mission. In a conventional film, he might be tempted at some point by material gain or the fear of punishment—but here, truly Jesuslike, he stays true: in a late scene, he even refuses money for his own escape and directs it to be used to start a medical facility. His counterpart, Bill O’Neal (Lakeith Stanfield), is the Judas of the tale, and he’s roped in early by the FBI and never escapes.
Where, we start to wonder, are the character arcs for these individuals? Without any real changes in their attitudes or situations, the narrative begins to seem…well, a bit boring.
But King isn’t interested in making a white-knuckle thriller, nor does he want a traditional two-character study. Instead, he presents us with an atypically stoic tragedy, a pained lament for a historical figure’s early death that drops all pretense of uncertainty. In the film’s opening, we’re introduced to its five-note main theme—Best Original Score, please!—and it’s a sad, almost funereal dirge, setting King’s tone for the remainder of the film. Judas and the Black Messiah is essentially a visualized death march for Fred Hampton, a mourning of his long-assured fate from a studied admirer. Nothing is so conveyed in this film as the utter inevitability of Hampton’s eventual death: the pieces are in place from the very beginning, and nothing can change.
I think my favorite moment of the movie is when an anonymous, unseen FBI agent shouts, after examining a sedated Hampton in his bed: “He’s actually gonna make it!” It’s heartbreaking to hear, because it reminds us of what, in our hearts, we already knew: that O’Neal’s cooperation wasn’t truly essential, that Hampton would have been killed regardless of the duplicity.
We have to ask ourselves, I suppose: what is the artistic value of a film that denies us hope for its hero? In my own opinion, the value is considerable. It makes for a bleak watch, but there’s honesty in bleakness. Had King relented a bit, we might have seen something closer to Aaron Sorkin’s far inferior The Trial of the Chicago 7 (review here), which addresses highly similar themes and, unlike Judas, does employ the traditional rules of drama—but finds itself too often in corny territory and ultimately sounds an out of place, Kumbaya-style final note.
Perhaps the survival of pregnant Deborah Johnson (Dominique Fishback) is the glimmer we want: Hampton may have been doomed, but maybe, if we work hard enough, his son won’t be. Musings like this are possible, even necessary, when a director insists on a certain vision. So while his characters may not be as dynamic as we’d like, King leaves us with no less to ponder for it.
— Jim Andersen
For a related review, see my more negative thoughts on The Trial of the Chicago 7.