Ugly and Divisive Racist Revenge Fantasy
A black police officer starts preying on and abusing white people. 'Black Cop' is an ugly and amateurishly made film. While Ronnie Rowe is solid in the lead, and his narration, heavy handed though it is, holds what story there is together, everyone else is a cliche, with every black character innocent, downtrodden and spouting inspirational Democrat Party propaganda, and every white character either openly racist to unbelievable levels in the 21st century or a video game NPC with no reason for existence beyond their skin colour. The film is poorly shot and the script is film student-level. The speaking direct-to-camera parts are the worst-made, and look like they were filmed on a stage at an acting class rehearsal. The soundtrack is intrusive and distracting, padding out scenes that go on too long with nothing of interest happening onscreen. Everything that happens after the first half hour is so far-fetched and pointless that any interest in the story collapses: after that it's just watching someone playing a video game, with occasional close-ups of Rowe doing terrible things while looking pained, righteous and noble. And the ending is as preachy and cringe and hamfisted as any Spike Lee joint. The victimhood narrative underpinning the movie insists that we live in a society so prejudiced against black people that there is no way for them to succeed, a society in which black voices are shut down at every turn. But the reality is we live in a society in which it's impossible to imagine a movie with this kind of story being made at all if the races were reversed. It's a certainty today that whoever would make such a film would never work again, whereas the writer and director of this one probably only got the funding and support to make this film BECAUSE of his skin colour, and because of the agenda it pushes, which he presumably still believes is edgy and challenging. It's anything but. It would be great to see a film made today that deals with racial tensions in an interesting, believable and non-preachy manner. It can be done: Paul Haggis' "Crash" (2004) showed a lot of the same situations as this film, but there every character - black and white - felt believable, and fully rounded, and the aim was an eagle-eye aerial view of society as a whole. The writer and director of this film, Cory Bowles, would be completely incapable of making such a film, as it would require seeing white people as human beings too, with internal lives and interesting, valid reasons for believing the things they believe. They would have to be right sometimes, and the black characters would have to be wrong. That simple, most absolutely basic fact of reality, and morality, (and art) seems utterly beyond his powers or imagination. There is no art here. No skill. No depth. And very little talent. This 'film' is just a societally-sanctioned racist fantasy that I guess is condoned (and celebrated!) by those with decision-making powers as it is seen as some sort of release valve for the black community, while only driving the races further and further apart. You don't rid society of racism by dividing society up into the 'good' black people and the 'bad' white people and then demanding black and white audiences clap along to white people being beaten up and abused. What kind of nightmarish victimhood-worshipping echo-chamber would you have to be imprisoned in to even think such a thing? What's most disturbing of all is that this is the only kind of film that can be made now about this subject. This deeply divisive, race-baiting opinion is the only opinion. This now is the status quo.score 3/10
MogwaiMovieReviews 26 March 2021
Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw6743510/35356
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