One thing that has become more and more clear to me as I get older is that the United States tries to avoid the hard questions by not teaching its citizens what really happened in our past. When I grew up in the West during the 1980s, we were taught all about Manifest Destiny and the “brave men” who expanded our borders and made our country the great land it is today. I was taught little about the slaughter and forced relocation of the natives. I learned all that stuff on my own much later.
Likewise, we learned about the brave African Americans who fought and won equal rights in the United States during the 1960s. While I did learn about Martin Luther King Jr. and how he was assassinated, I wasn’t taught how government agents abused their authority to target people and make them disappear all in the name of “keeping the peace.” The name Fred Hampton would have meant nothing to me still were it not for Shaka King’s absolutely harrowing drama released in 2021. Like most people watching this amazing picture, I was rightfully appalled with what I saw, and I understood why Bill O’Neal ultimately couldn’t go on living with what he did. While the film doesn’t outright state that his suicide was because of the events in this film, it does suggest a correlation.
The title Judas and the Black Messiah is an apt one. The story of Judas, as it appears in the Bible, is interesting. Judas was one of Christ’s apostles, one of the elite chosen by Jesus to teach his word throughout the world. But Judas at some point made a deal to betray Christ for a sum of money, a betrayal that led to the crucifixion. Judas, feeling remorse for his actions, hung himself from a tree. The Bible never tells us what changed Judas into the betrayer. Was he disillusioned in the teachings of Christ or was he simply tempted by the money being offered? Was he blackmailed into his betrayal? That one is unlikely but not impossible.
For our modern-day Judas, though, blackmail is exactly what happened. Bill O’Neal (LaKeith Stanfield) was arrested for impersonating an FBI agent for the purposes of stealing a car. Impressed by this scheme, FBI Agent Roy Mitchell (Jesse Plemons) offers him a deal: use his skills to infiltrate the Chicago chapter of the Black Panther Party or rot in jail. O’Neal accepts the offer and manages, over a period of time, to get in close with the head of the Chicago chapter, Fred Hampton (Daniel Kaluuya), a charismatic individual who has begun to make inroads with the local gangs, militias as well as some interracial groups, to better lives and push for equal rights. The FBI utilizes information provided by O’Neal to arrest Hampton on a trumped-up charge, raid Black Panther hideouts, and eventually silence Hampton permanently. Meanwhile, the emotional and psychological toll is wearing O’Neal down, but he is forced to keep on doing what he is told lest he find himself thrown in jail, too.
This is a time in history that we Americans should rightfully be ashamed of. Still, we shouldn’t ignore it and think by doing so it will go away like it never happened. There will always be people out there keeping these stories alive and reminding us of what we wish to ignore. It’s a shame that sometimes we have to rely on films like this to fill in the history that our schools don’t bother teaching us. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if someday we will have to rely on the movies to tell us who Malcolm X or MLK Jr. were. This lack of education is one of the reasons why there are people out there today loudly proclaiming on social media that the civil rights wars didn’t really happen or that the Holocaust was just made-up propaganda to incite a war in Europe.
It is impressive watching LaKeith Stanfield act in this film. I had seen him earlier in the biopics Selma and Straight Outta Compton, and as good as he was in those films, he is leaps and bounds better here. This is a man whose every move is conflicting. He has to sell himself to his fellow African Americans, knowing that he is betraying them and a cause that he believes in. He is a black man in the 60s forced to choose between saving his own butt or helping those who are intent on helping his whole race. While I would like to think I would be noble and take one for the team, I would probably cave in just as he did and look after my own interests first. It’s not a good situation to be in, and I will never know for sure what I would do unless I was in that exact situation myself. The choices that he makes destroy him personally and we can see that clearly in the archive interview footage we see of the man, himself, filmed shortly before his suicide. We are told the very day that interview was shown on television, he took his own life.
LaKeith is the star of this film; there is no doubt about that. So I am at a loss as to why he was nominated for an Oscar in the supporting category, putting him in direct competition with his co-star, Daniel Kaluuya. This was the year that the Academy assumed Chadwick Boseman was going to win posthumously for his role in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, so maybe they didn’t want to have him compete with that. But even that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense as Kaluuya was also a strong contender and ended up running away with that category. By putting Stanfield in the supporting category, it felt like a consolation nomination that the voters had no faith in.
Daniel Kaluuya may not have the lead role and have to juggle that personal conflict in his performance, but his is the showier part. He has to be charismatic and driven, willing to put himself out there for the sake of his people. When he speaks, people listen. But there is another side to him that isn’t often explored when dealing with charismatic people. He has a shy side to his personality, especially around Deborah (Dominique Fishback), the woman he falls in love with. The two of them share a short, but intense and passionate, love for each other.
O’Neal isn’t called upon to identify Hampton the way Judas was for Jesus. But he is asked to drug the man to make him more pliable when the feds raid his apartment. O’Neal feels this is going one step too far but gives in once again to the pressure from the bureau. The reality of the situation, though, is the feds have no intention of arresting Hampton. The man is awaiting returning to jail anyways as his appeal has been denied. The feds, authorized by none other than J. Edgar Hoover (Martin Sheen), are there to execute Hampton and they want him drugged to avoid meeting any resistance. They raid his apartment, arrest Deborah, who is pregnant with his son, and shoot Fred Hampton in cold blood. They were so afraid of him gaining support while he was in prison that they risked turning him into a martyr for the cause instead.
This film is mostly accurate to the events that occurred around O’Neal and Hampton, but it is not a biography. Some poetic license was used as well as a bit of fictionalizing to fill in gaps in the known events. Still, it makes for a compelling look at just how afraid people were of the idea of changing ideals and the inevitable unrest that was bringing. All of this happened not long before I was born but well within the lifetime of my parents. The replications are still being felt to this day even if the official Black Panther Party has been dissolved. The film makes sure we understand that the fight still goes on and that the son of Fred Hampton, Fred Hampton Jr. and his mother serve as chairman and board members of the Black Panther Party Cubs. Nearly sixty years after the events of this film, the repercussions of these events can still be felt and still drive those that were there at the time.
Academy Award Nominations:
Best Picture: Shaka King, Charles D. King, and Ryan Coogler
Best Supporting Actor: Daniel Kaluuya (won)
Best Supporting Actor: LaKeith Stanfield
Best Original Screenplay: Will Brson, Shaka King, Kenny Lucas, and Keith Lucas
Best Cinematography: Sean Bobbitt
Best Original Song: “Fight for You” by H.E.R., Dernst Emile II, and Tiara Thomas (won)
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Release Date: February 12, 2021
Running Time: 126 Minutes
Rated R
Starring: Daniel Kaluuya, LaKeith Stanfield, Jesse Plemons, Dominique Fishback, Ashton Sanders, and Martin Sheen
Directed By: Shaka King
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