Judas and the Black Messiah Review: Killing Us Softly
DARRELL BRITT-GIBSON as Bobby Rush, DANIEL KALUUYA as Chairman Fred Hampton and ASHTON SANDERS as Jimmy Palmer in Warner Bros. Pictures’ “JUDAS AND THE BLACK MESSIAH,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release.
By: Tatyana Woodall
As anyone can tell you, the saddest thing about betrayal, is that it never comes from your enemies.
Shaka King’s Judas and the Black Messiah delivers on exactly that, when young car thief Bill O’Neal (Lakeith Stanfield) is pulled into a scheme by the FBI to decimate Fred Hampton - the Illinois Black Panther Party chairman, and his followers.
Set against a backdrop of intense 1960’s-flavored racism and J. Edgar Hoover’s dangerous campaign to both annihilate and prevent ‘the rise of a Black Messiah,’ characters in the film are just as mesmerized by it’s powerful rhetoric as we are - Mao and Malcom X, King and Karl Marx - all of them live inside, and guide Hampton’s (Daniel Kaluuya) philosophy.
After finding himself sweetly aligned inside Hampton’s inner circle, (ironically, as his chief of security) O’Neal’s role as an FBI informant is cemented, and he’s swept away by promises of fortune and the earnest attention of a successful role model in FBI Agent Roy Mitchell (Jesse Plemons).
Mitchell, who despite their community-driven values and dedication to education, likens the Black Panthers to the KKK, and pushes O’Neal to the edge with a sly exasperation. While he may not have betrayed Hampton with a kiss, the term Judas seems right for a man who eventually loses his grip on his sanity - and his soul.
Stanfield portrays the horror of O'Neal’s spiral so well, that his unease and ultimate uncertainty about his situation, is the audience’s. The film’s eye-catching visuals, solid pacing and the horrifying intimation that O’Neal was an instrumental force in Hampton’s murder, makes this story more than a cautionary tale on Black division, it forces us to confront victimization.
Alluded to in the third act by a character only identified as Wayne (Lil Rel Howery) in the credits, it seems that the name Judas and all those who embody it, are inevitable.
After instructing O’Neal to spike Hampton’s drink, O’Neal follows him to his car on shaky legs, and angrily, demands to know his name. Rolling down the window, the man relents, offering up a familiar-looking wallet.
It’s O’Neal’s fake badge - and a frantic moment of disbelief and profound loss for everyone watching. It’s what got him into this mess, and now it’s come full circle.
The film is a once-in-a-lifetime thriller, one riddled with the anxiety, and fervor of Black perseverance. There’s romance, hope, humor and laughter, even a few instances of personal justice - but as history can attest to, none of it is as satisfying as it should be.
In 1969, Hampton was only 21, and his girlfriend Deborah Johnson was over eight months pregnant with their son, when Chicago police raided their apartment and killed him. According to one of the film’s final panels, 99 shots were fired, to the Black Panthers’ one.
Twenty years later, Bill O’Neal gave his first and only interview about his time as an informant for the documentary series, Eyes On The Prize II. After it aired on Martin Luther King Day, O’Neal reportedly committed suicide that same night.
Truly a revolutionary take on a once silenced era of Black History, Judas and the Black Messiah is yet another instance of Black storytelling that will surely stand the test of time.
As Fred Hampton says repeatedly throughout the film, this one is for the people.
LAKEITH STANFIELD as Bill O’Neal and JESSE PLEMONS as Roy Mitchell in Warner Bros. Pictures’ “JUDAS AND THE BLACK MESSIAH,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release