X
- 2019
- R
- Screen Gems
- 1 h 48 m
- 2019
- R
- Screen Gems
- 1 h 48 m
Summary A rookie cop (Naomie Harris) inadvertently captures the murder of a young drug dealer on her body cam. After realizing that the murder was committed by corrupt cops, she teams up with the one person (Tyrese Gibson) from her community who is willing to help her as she tries to escape both the criminals out for revenge and the police who a...
Directed By: Deon Taylor
Written By: Peter A. Dowling
- 2019
- R
- Screen Gems
- 1 h 48 m
- 2019
- R
- Screen Gems
- 1 h 48 m
Black and Blue
54
5.8
Where to Watch
Summary A rookie cop (Naomie Harris) inadvertently captures the murder of a young drug dealer on her body cam. After realizing that the murder was committed by corrupt cops, she teams up with the one person (Tyrese Gibson) from her community who is willing to help her as she tries to escape both the criminals out for revenge and the police who a...
Directed By: Deon Taylor
Written By: Peter A. Dowling
Where to Watch
Top Cast
Metascore
Mixed or Average
Based on 23 Critic Reviews
54
39% Positive
9 Reviews
9 Reviews
57% Mixed
13 Reviews
13 Reviews
4% Negative
1 Review
1 Review
Metascore
Mixed or Average
Based on 23 Critic Reviews
54
39% Positive
9 Reviews
9 Reviews
57% Mixed
13 Reviews
13 Reviews
4% Negative
1 Review
1 Review
It’s a pulse-pounding, tightly wound thriller that sticks its predictable but nevertheless effective ending in order to provide a satisfying genre retread.
Sure, Black and Blue is a minor film, but it’s irresistible.
User Score
Mixed or Average
Based on 48 User Ratings
5.8
46% Positive
22 Ratings
22 Ratings
29% Mixed
14 Ratings
14 Ratings
25% Negative
12 Ratings
12 Ratings
User Score
Mixed or Average
Based on 48 User Ratings
5.8
46% Positive
22 Ratings
22 Ratings
29% Mixed
14 Ratings
14 Ratings
25% Negative
12 Ratings
12 Ratings
This movie was great from beginning to end. The acting, the storytelling and the plot. Spotted what happens when police don't protect and serve communities of color when those within their ranks are still trying to do the right thing.
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I don’t want to overssell Black and Blue. It doesn’t transcend its genre. But it doesn’t waste our time, modulates its chase with alternating brisk and slow pacing, hand-held camera sprints interrupted by bursts of violence and stops, every so often, at a moral crossroad.
Although less convincing when it tries to say something meaningful about racism and police brutality, Black And Blue has sufficient pulp pleasures and a winning confidence in executing its modest ambitions.
Black and Blue feels imbalanced and overlong, favoring fast and repetitive chase scenes over well-calibrated tension.
There's a tight, tense thriller in all this. Unfortunately, director Deon Taylor and screenwriter Peter A. Dowling stretch things out to a logy 104 minutes. Too often, the suspense dissipates between action scenes when it should be consistent and relentless, even in the quietest moments.
Black and Blue is almost incoherently edited, dumping out chase scenes where characters round corners and enter rooms with absolutely no sense of spacing or location. That, plus a predictable number of digital squibs, prevents the film from connecting as either art or entertainment.
“Black and Blue” is a police procedural that offers a few pleasures along the way. The plot, however, is a plodding process of pedantic predictability. It’s not just that you can predict the storyline from a mile away - if you were circling the globe in a space capsule, the plot would still be painfully self-evident.
Alicia West (Naomie Harris) is a vet who has served two tours in Afghanistan and decided to return home to the Ninth Ward in New Orleans, become a cop and continue her service to country. Most of her colleagues and adversaries are simply cardboard cut-outs. Apparently, all white cops are bad: uninterested in the plight of blacks in poorer areas of the city, obnoxiously aggressive jerks at best, murderers at worst. With only minor exceptions, blacks are gang members living the code of the streets.
What makes this film worthwhile is Naomie Harris. You may have seen her in 2016’s “Moonlight.” Some will recognize her as the first black Miss Moneypenny in “Skyfall” and “Spectre,” the two most recent installments in the James Bond franchise. Her performance here is a study in controlled intensity. Her self-control it admirable; it’s probably all she can do to keep from shooting the director and the screenwriter. In an outtake shown when the closing credits begin to roll, she displays a smile so luminous that you could see it from that space capsule. It’s the only time you see her smile in the film, presumably because she read the script beforehand.
Mike Colter makes his obligatory turn as the drug kingpin, Darius, a bit less two-dimensional than it might have been. His role here as an intimidating thug offers an interesting departure from his much more appealing roles in “Luke Cage” and this year’s TV show “Evil.” As Mouse, Tyrese Gibson (best known as a pillar of the “Fast and Furious” franchise) takes full advantage of being the only other character in the film with any depth or nuance.
If you’re an action-adventure junkie, “Black and Blue” won’t disappoint. There’s plenty of action, lots of fights and an abundance of chase scenes. Unfortunately, a lot of those chases end up at dead ends.
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If someone told me that Peter A. Dowling ghost-wrote The Room, i'd believe them.
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Moral is cops evil, not a fan. Maybe the movie could have been better with some better acting and a lot less cheesy.
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Production Company
Hidden Empire Film Group (HEFG),
Ireland Entertainment Productions,
Royal Viking Entertainment,
Screen Gems
Release Date Oct 25, 2019
Duration 1 h 48 m
Rating R
Tagline The truth made her a target.
Awards
ReFrame
• 1 Win & 1 Nomination
Image Awards (NAACP)
• 1 Nomination
African Movie Academy Awards
• 1 Nomination
