Black Cop *** ½ / *****
Directed by: Cory Bowles.
Written by: Cory Bowles.
Written by: Ronnie Rowe Jr. (Black
Cop), Sophia Walker (Rookie Cop), Sebastien Labelle (White Cop), Simon Paul
Mutuyimana (Hoodie), Christian Murray (Running Man), Ambyr Dunn (Driver), Taylor
Olson (Student), Jeff Schwager (Hard Cop), Emmanuel John (Blipster), Matthew
McIntyre (Passenger), Koumbie (Rally Leader), Bob Mann (Pissed Dad), Ira
Henderson (Customer), Keegan Blue (SG), Nathan Simmons (Resisting Youth), Devon
Taylor (Quiet Youth), Kirsten Olivia Taylor (Demonstrator), Andre Lucas Fenton
(Poet).
Black
Cop is a provocative satire about race and policing in America. It basically
asks two questions – the first is what it means to be both black and a police officer,
and the second what would happen if white people were subjected to the same
treatment at the hands of police that black people are? Debut filmmaker Cory
Bowles has crafted a messy film that asks questions, even if it doesn’t have
the answers. It doesn’t need them – the questions are enough.
The
title character pointedly doesn’t have a name other than Black Cop – and is
played in a wonderful performance by Ronnie Rowe Jr. In the opening scenes, set
during Black Lives Matters protests, it looks like Black Cop doesn’t much care
about his follow black citizens – he ignores the taunts and the yelling, as he
calmly chews gum – smirking when they yell at him, and pushing back the
protesters – gently – when they get too close. But as Black Cop directly
addresses the camera, the truth is more complicated. He knows all too well what
his community is going through – his father told him how to deal with police
from a young age – if a cop approaches you for any reason at any time – raise
your hands, answer the questions politely, and prey. His father meant it as a
warning – but Black Cop took it another way – wanting that kind of power that
he can only get if he is an officer. What really changes things for Black Cop
is when he is walking down the street – just having bought a bottle of water –
and being confronted by two white cops, who do not give him respect or even
time to answer – and who seem all too willing to draw their guns on him. He
escapes that situation – but it finally pushes him too far. When he goes to
work the next day, he declares it his “retirement day” – and he wants to make
the most of it. For the rest of the day, he will confront white people, in
seemingly innocent situations, and treat them with the same kind of skepticism
and quick rise to violence that black people know all too well.
Smartly,
this part of the movie only makes up the second act of the film – there is only
so far that Bowles can take it, before it becomes repetitive. It’s telling, and
smart, that Bowles gets the white people confronted by Black Cop react the same
way – perhaps even more so – in terms of aggression towards Black Cop, that
have gotten black people killed when talking to police. There is running
commentary in the form of a radio talk show that reminds us of those instances,
so we see how similar these are. Bowles makes the easy point that after one day
of one cop acting this way towards white people, everyone is on alert for this
“rogue cop” – when in reality, this stuff goes on all the time.
If there is a problem with Black
Cop, it’s that I don’t think Bowles really knows how to end this. After the
movie moves on from him confronting white people, there doesn’t seem to be
anywhere really to go. The movie had introduced a rookie cop – a young black
woman – earlier in the film, and the film brings them together in the last act,
but I’m not really sure the movie knows what to do with them. It’s okay that
the movie keeps posing questions, without answers – but the last act suffers a
little from going in circles.
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