The Force

Name: The Force
Genre: Documentary
Released: September 22, 2017
Duration: 80 min
Rating: 80
Cast: Juan Carlos Zapata

2017

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Generally favorable reviews based on 10 Critic Reviews

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The Force

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Movie Details & Credits

Kino Lorber | Release Date: September 22, 2017 | Not Rated

Starring: Juan Carlos Zapata

Summary: At a powderkeg moment in American policing, The Force goes deep inside the embattled Oakland Police Department as it struggles to reform itself amid growing local controversy. Winner of the Documentary Directing Award at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival, filmmaker Peter Nicks embedded with the department over the course of two years toAt a powderkeg moment in American policing, The Force goes deep inside the embattled Oakland Police Department as it struggles to reform itself amid growing local controversy. Winner of the Documentary Directing Award at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival, filmmaker Peter Nicks embedded with the department over the course of two years to follow its serial efforts to recast itself. The film focuses on the new chief brought in to effect reform at the very moment the Black Lives Matter movement emerges to demand police accountability and racial justice both in Oakland and across the nation. [Kiino Lorber]… Expand

Director: Peter Nicks

Genre(s): Documentary

Rating: Not Rated

Runtime: 80 min

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Critic Reviews

100

Peter Hartlaub

Sep 22, 2017

The fly-on-the-wall style is a slow build that leads to an immersive experience, and then an ultimate payoff as the change-minded department detours into another scandal. The Force is like watching a drug addict take a few meaningful steps toward recovery, only to relapse again. Read full review

Tim Grierson

Aug 2, 2017

In the gripping, inspiring — and, ultimately, dispiriting — documentary The Force, a troubled police force tries to redeem itself, only to learn how nearly impossible the task may be. Read full review

Bilge Ebiri

Sep 6, 2017

The Force is hypnotic and eye-opening. Nicks has a style that is both experiential and ethereal: From its ground-level immersion in the minutiae of police work to its sweeping helicopter shots of the city at night, The Force has the texture of a Michael Mann film combined with the clarity of a Frederick Wiseman documentary. Read full review

Manohla Dargis

Sep 21, 2017

The movie may offer an incriminatory catalog of organizational failure, but it also repeatedly shows people trying to make the system work. Read full review

Kenneth Turan

Sep 22, 2017

The result, unusual in a documentary involving the police and the public, is a film that does not advocate for anything but the truth, one that aims to show what happens on both sides of an issue rather than coming down in favor of one or the other. Read full review

Owen Gleiberman

Aug 2, 2017

The strength, and fascination, of The Force is that the movie isn’t on anyone’s side. It’s cognizant of the brutality and violence that police officers, in our era, have been caught on phone cameras committing. At the same time, it’s not out to demonize the police — it’s out to capture the pressures they’re under, and to show us what their job looks like from the inside. Read full review

Keith Watson

Sep 18, 2017

Though initially compelling, Peter Nick's documentary is fundamentally without a clear perspective on its subject. Read full review

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