Whereas most films are made with the sole purpose of entertaining their respective audience, others can manage do so while also bearing reflections of key social issues that plague society. In the case of action movies, their purpose usually is to deliver both explosive and kinetic action while occasionally delivering a classic morality tale regarding good vs evil with the main hero/heroine ultimately fighting for what's right with them succeeding in most cases. However, fast-paced action thrillers can be particularly tricky to execute. Not only are their stories brisked pace but the filmmakers find themselves faced with the task of creating stories and characters, whom the audience can become connected to and want to see make it through the whole ordeal. With these films, both character development and timing are limited with the writers being forced to become creative with the films script. In the case of Black and Blue, the film chooses to pick a story that carries with it a great deal of social relevance in regards to today's world with the filmmakers utilizing the talents of Naomie Harris in the films main role as a faithful female rookie cop being forced to go into hiding when her body cam captures three other police officers committing an act of murder. Black And Blue carries with it a story that's not only designed to make for an efficient fast-paced actioner, but carries with it a concept that feels timely. As noble as the films intentions are in regards to shedding a light on relevant issues such as police corruption, its overall execution despite being mildly entertaining leaves much to be desired in terms of its intended impact with audiences.
The plot for
Black And Blue centers around an idealistic army veteran (Played by Naomie Harris) joining the police force in New Orleans as a rookie police officer with the intention of protecting her neighborhood. While doing so, she finds her loyalty being challenged with her bothers in blue as well as her community, that looks down on her as a black woman being a police officer. Complications arise when she witnesses three crooked police officers committing murder with her body cam capturing recording it, forcing her to go into running as the crooked cops seek to destroy the evidence. On paper, the plot for
Black and Blue is one that carries with it a great deal of promise and potential in regards to not only delivering explosive action to it's audience, but also using the opportunity to make a powerful statement regarding corruption and how it can be hidden behind ones profession or uniform. The plot is certainly one that's formulaic but also riveting and feels appropriate for recent times, though the overall execution of it feels underwhelming in the sense the film didn't live up to the full potential of it's plot. What does work in its favor is the compelling performance from Harris in the films main lead. She creates a character whom the audience can empathize with as she struggles with being loyal to two different worlds such as her community that's predominantly African-American, as well as her profession of being a police officer with it being expected of her to fully embrace her new family of blue with little to no regard for regular members of her community. The script does well with showing this struggle with Naomie bringing the right amount of intensity and emotion to the part. The rest of the film however, doesn't feel as inspired as the performance she gives with the script feeling like it's a culmination of generic subplots lifted from other police-themed action thrillers despite the strength of the plot. The film as a whole works as being exciting to watch, but often can't shake the feeling that everything outside of Harris performance feels average with no new ground being broken or risks being taken. The film delivers on its promise of giving it's audience loads of action and solid suspense, but ultimately doesn't have the conviction to follow through with the themes and overall message its script desires to address.
The films strongest asset lies within the believability of the story, largely thanks to the performances of the main cast with the strongest work easily going to Naomie Harris as U.S Army Veteran turned rookie cop named Alicia West. Harris brings the appropriate strength and vulnerability to the part as she plays a character, whose essentially stuck between two sides of the same city with her trying to balance her identity as a black woman within her community, while realizing that her loyalty to her peers is tested when she witnesses corruption first hand with her being targeted for evidence of the crime she witnessed on her body cam. The role proves to be a complex one that requires a talented actress with a firm grip on her talent to pull it off. With Harris, she not only shows audiences that she's up to the challenge the character requires, but helps elevate the film into being something more than just an average yet forgettable action flick. Her performance serves as being the heart of the film and at times is ultimately what keeps the audience invested in the story with them wanting to see her character survive and bring the films crooked cops to justice. The second strongest performance of the film goes to Tyrese Gibson in the role of Milo Jackson, a local store owner whose reluctant at first to hide Alicia when she's being pursued by the dirty cops. Although his performance isn't as strong as Harris, Gibson still holds his own and manages to deliver an impressive straightforward performance as a compassionate and friendly store owner, who appeared distant in communicating with Alicia at first due to her being a neighborhood cop, but ultimately comes around to befriending and helping her. He also manages to share good chemistry with Harris as well as deliver one of his more serious and emotional roles in recent times, with the audience ultimately being able to empathize with his character as well. Other noteworthy performances are Frank Grillo as the films main antagonist Terry Malone, Mike Colter in a scene-stealing supporting role as local crime kingpin Darius Tureau, whose tricked into placing a bounty on Alicia's head for the murder of his nephew Zero at the hands of the crooked cops pursuing her, Reid Scott as Alicia's partner Kevin Jennings who reminds her of the differences in regards to residing in the community she grew up in and the police department she now works under. Other notable supporting roles are Beau Knapp as dirty cop Smitty and Nafessa Williams as Alicia's childhood best friend turned enemy Missy with her character posing one of the greatest challenges for Alicia in terms of remaining connected to her despite wearing the blue. With a story like the one
Black and Blue carries, a strong and effective cast was always needed in bringing both the intensity as well as believability of the story to the screen. With the cast presented here, they manage to rise to the occasion with everyone delivering performances that feel real and ultimately convincing. As good as the supporting cast does with their parts, it's ultimately Naomie Harris who steals the show and essentially becomes the anchor of the film in connecting the audience with its plot through the perspective of her character. The film ultimately wouldn't be watchable without the intensity of her performance driving the emotional core of the story.
The films directing by Deon Taylor can best be summed up as being gritty though standard work with the most interesting element that Taylor brings to the film is the intercutting of the action with body cam shots taken from Alicia's camera, further emphasizing the notion that the audience is seeing everything unfold from her perspective. Taylor's work on the film isn't bad but doesn't scream anything truly impressive nor innovative. He succeeds in keeping the action moving along at a swift pace, that manages to keep the audience at the edge of their seat while fairly allowing the plot to unfold throughout the films 108 minute running time. His directing gives the story a considerable amount of life and energy, though one wishes he slowed things down a bit to add more quiet moments with the characters as those are the ones that help make the story work. Taylor gives the neighborhood Alicia lives in and patrols a look that gives it an urban yet poverished appearance with the audience getting the idea that the area is riddled with crime.
The films cinematography proves most effective in keeping the action sequences both clean and visible with him adding a blue-tinted atmosphere to the background, which feels symbolic given the films synopsis centering around police who wear blue. The films score by Geoff Zanelli does well with enhancing the films tension in regards to the story with the soundtrack often feeling as if it wants to challenge the action for total domination within their respective scenes. As far as directing goes, Deon Taylor provides the film with a reasonably decent effort in delivering both the suspense and tension the story requires while keeping it tightly paced. The film isn't as masterfully structured, perfectly-paced, nor as well-executed as Antoine Fuqua's
Training Day in regards to throwing the audience into the action, but it succeeds in keeping them on their feet with them itching to see what happens next with Harris character in terms of whether she makes it or not. The film doesn't feel as if its overlong or overstays it's welcome, it actually feels as if more time could've been utilized by the filmmakers to flesh out both its story and characters further. Taylor's work on the film is not a bad effort by any means, but it also isn't the groundbreaking nor innovative style that the story needed in order to truly standout to audiences rather than feel generic and familiar with its plot elements. His single biggest flaw as a director of the film is relying on impressively shot action and well-executed car chase sequences rather than steadily building up the suspense through the films script, which clearly needed more work beforehand in order for the film to truly work.
As far as scriptwriting goes, the films screenplay by Peter A. Dowling feels average at best with the films themes and hard-hitting message making the story appealing. The film tackles themes pertaining to police corruption, drug dealing, lies, deception, and death of loved ones. What the script does well is crafting the story in a way that makes all of these themes revolve around it. The character of Alicia is fairly well-established with her character struggling to live as both a black woman in her neighborhood, along with being looked upon critically by the rest of the neighborhood due to her choosing to be a police officer given the poor relations between the local police department and its surrounding community. An example of a scene that shows the conflict Alicia's character experiences being both an African-American woman and female police officer is the opening sequence in which her character is shown peacefully jogging through her neighborhood. She ends up being stopped by two aggressive police officers, who both search and question her until she shows proof of being one as well. Rather than admitting to making a mistake and apologizing, the blatantly rude officer of the two insists that she must be new to the force. This scene proves to be an extremely effective opener because it effectively establishes the thin line that Harris character walks between the world of being a local member of her community, along with being a cop. The scenes that follow with showing her character receiving mistreatment, disrespect, and distance from other fellow members of her neighborhood due to her association with the local police department are well-staged and properly set up the dilemma her character faces. The script does well with showing the conflict that Alicia's character faces with her loyalty to both her community as well as her family in blue, who constantly remind her of what's expected in joining the department in regards to where her loyalties lie. The scripts problems arrive when it chooses to switch into full-blown action thriller mode when her character witnesses the corruption within her own department regarding the murder of an unarmed citizen by her fellow peers. This is where the film begins to lose the steady build up of its more thought-provoking themes and settles for being an entertaining yet generic action thriller. Rather than continuing to build on the films powerful themes regarding ones loyalty and ultimately having to decide where it lies when injustice occurs, the film chooses about midway to opt out of its well-written first half and instead embrace a formulaic approach with its latter half, which ultimately keeps it from being anything more than passable entertainment. In addition to the film not living up to the maximum potential of its story, it often feels as if it relies on old-fashioned cliches lifted from other classic police thrillers such as cops shown at first to be good turn out to be working with the crooked ones to help catch Alicia because of the evidence her body cam carries. Other generic elements are the films side villain such as the drug kingpin Darius played by Mike Colter, being misled into thinking Alicia killed her nephew with him ultimately placing a bounty on her head. Other elements that feel familiar are Harris character's childhood friend Missy (Played by Nafessa Williams) being resentful towards Alicia for leaving her behind with Missy being shown to go down a life of crime before ultimately supporting Alicia again once she see's the body cam footage. Overall, the script for
Black and Blue feels like a mixed bag as the script contains elements such as its themes that could've elevated it into being something powerful and memorable, though its desire to rely on previously used subplots and generic action thriller cliches ultimately keep it from reaching its maximum potential.
In the end,
Black And Blue settles for being reasonable entertainment that's engaging to watch and even exciting at times with it's well-staged chase sequences. There's enough here to make it work as an enjoyable action thriller, but the reality is this film could've been much more as it feels like both its story and ultimately message demand for it to be. The film leaves audiences with a hard-hitting message, which says that bad guys are bad guys regardless of who they are and what type of uniform they wear. Such a powerful statement deserves way more effort placed into its story than what's ultimately presented here. As an exciting cop thriller,
Black And Blue delivers with much thanks being directed towards Naomie Harris gripping performance. However, it becomes frustrating as good as she is that Harris didn't have a stronger script to back her talents up because this feels like a film that was appropriately made for the moment regarding all the controversy involving fatal police shootings while perfectly mirroring current times. Perhaps the filmmakers didn't want to make the film feel too relevant out of fear of stoking controversy that could harm its box office prospects, but such a risk shouldn't be a reason they don't further explore the concept even further in-depth. Watching the film, it becomes clear that the movie itself has something to say in regards to presenting its story. It's a shame that the filmmakers didn't follow through on the movies promise to give audiences an experience that's not only exciting but reflective and ultimately eye-opening. The real tragedy is what this film could've been had they gave it their fullest effort.
Final Verdict: For action thriller fans,
Black And Blue works as being an average though ultimately forgettable cop thriller made watchable largely thanks to Naomie Harris terrific performance.
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