Yahya Abdul-Mateen II Archives

Review: ‘Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom,’ starring Jason Momoa, Patrick Wilson, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Amber Heard, Nicole Kidman, Dolph Lundgren and Randall Park

December 22, 2023

by Carla Hay

Jason Momoa and Yahya Abdul-Mateen II in “Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom” (Photo courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures)

Directed by James Wan

Culture Representation: Taking place above and below the oceans of Earth, the superhero action film “Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom” (based on DC Comics characters) features a racially diverse cast of characters (Asian, white and African American) portraying superheroes and regular human beings.

Culture Clash: Ocean-dwelling superhero Aquaman, also known as Arthur Curry, battles Black Manta, a villain who wants to control the world through environmental terrorism.

Culture Audience: “Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of star Jason Momoa and movies based on DC Comics, but the movie is inferior in every way to its 2018 predecessor, “Aquaman.”

Patrick Wilson and Jason Momoa in “Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom” (Photo courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures)

Just like toxic seaweed, “Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom” is a tangled and rotten mess of a superhero film with uneven visual effects, cringeworthy dialogue and a sloppy plot. The filmmakers mistakenly think that Aquaman’s charisma is defined by “surf dude” whooping and hollering. It all becomes very predictable and tiresome, especially when the story is so weak and becomes unnecessarily convoluted in order to stretch the movie’s screen time.

Directed by James Wan and written by David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick, “Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom” (whose release was delayed multiple times) is supposed to be the last movie in the DC Extendeded Universe (DCEU), which began with 2013’s “Man of Steel,” a Superman origin story. Movies and TV shows based on DC Comics are going through a major overhaul under the leadership of DC Studios co-chairs/co-CEOs James Gunn and Peter Safran, who were appointed to these positions in 2022. The first “Aquaman” movie, released in 2018, is the highest-grossing DC Comics-based movie of all time, with worldwide ticket sales of about $1.15 billion.

Many of the filmmakers behind “Aquaman” are also behind “Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom,” including director Wan, screenwriter Johnson-McGoldrick, producer Rob Cowan, cinematographer Don Burgess, production designer Bill Brzeski, film editor Kirk Morri, music composer Rupert Gregson-Williams and music supervisor is Michelle Silverman. Most of the headlining cast members from “Aquaman” are also in “Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom.” What went wrong?

“Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom” stumbles from the beginning with a corny montage sequence of Arthur Curry/Aquaman (played by Jason Momoa) rescuing a ship that’s being invaded by pirates, and then explaining that he’s now a husband and father who’s the king of the secret underwater kingdom of Atlantis. “That’s right,” Arthur says proudly. “I’m the king of frickin’ Atlantis.”

Arthur likes having this royal title, but he says he hates doing government work that comes with the job, such as attending council meetings, because he doesn’t think it’s any fun. The montage includes Arthur/Aquaman looking like he’s about to fall asleep from boredom at one of these meetings. Aquaman is supposed to be an adult (who looks like a middle-aged human), but he often talks like he’s a teenager who’s become a legal adult and is resentful about having certain adult responsibilities.

Arthur’s wife Mera (played by Amber Heard) gets very choppy film editing in the movie. She’s almost non-existent in the early scenes showing Arthur taking care of baby son Arthur Jr., while Arthur’s supportive father Tom Curry (played by Temuera Morrison) lives in the same household. Adding to the movie’s unimaginative and juvenile comedy, the baby urinates in Arthur’s face more than once in diaper-changing scenes.

At several points in the movie, Arthur looks like he’s a single father, even though he speaks lovingly of his wife, who is nowhere to be seen without explanation when Arthur is spending time with his family. The off-screen controversy over Heard and ex-husband Johnny Depp might or might not have played a role in how Heard is edited in the movie. Many of Depp’s fans petitioned Warner Bros. Pictures to cut her out of the movie because of issues related to the ex-couple’s legal disputes.

Meanwhile, villain David Kane (played Yahya Abdul-Mateen II), who has the alter ego Black Manta, is hell-bent on getting revenge on Aquaman, who was responsible for the death of David’s father in the first “Aquaman” movie. In “Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom,” David is seen scowling while his Black Manta suit is propped nearby. He fumes, “Every day I don’t fix my power suit is another day that Aquaman gets to live.”

David has continued in his father’s profession of being a deep-sea diver who hunts for treasure. He ends up rescuing Dr. Stephen Shin (played by Randall Park), a marine biologist who has survived a deadly attack from a mysterious giant creature with tentacles during an underwater exploration near Antarctica. (“Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom” was actually filmed in Hawaii.) This creature has killed some of the people in Stephen’s team.

Stephen (who is stereotypical science geek character) is grateful to David for saving his life, but it turns out that David is forcing Stephen and the rest of the marine biologist team to work with David. Unbenkownst to Stephen, David has found a magical Black Trident that has allowed David to communicate with this demonic-like creature. The creature has told David: “Free me from my prison, and I will grant you the strength to kill the man who murdered your father.”

This creature is Kordax (played by Pilou Asbæk), the leader of Necrus, which is also called the Lost Kingdom of Atlantis. There are seven kingdoms of Atlantis: Necrus, Atlantis, Xebel, Kingdom of the Fishermen, Kingdom of the Trench, Kingdom of the Brine and Kingdom of the Deserters. David finds out that the Black Trident needs a certain fuel to reach its full power.

Five months later, Arthur/Aquaman appears before the Council of Atlantis, whose leader Karshon (played by Indya Moore) advises him that the people in the surface world have been poisoning the atmosphere of Atlantis through irresponsible environmental pollution. (It has something do with David stealing a stash of orichalcum, a dangerous metal that was locked up in Atlantis.) Arthur thinks it’s time for Atlantis to reveal itself to the people above the water. However, he gets resistance from council members who think that Atlantis should remain a secret from humans.

The rest of “Aquaman” becomes a mishmash of very fake-looking chase/fight scenes, climate change messaging, and a family reunion with a lot of awkward banter. And there’s some nonsense about Curry family blood that gets thrown into the story in a desperate attempt to make the plot look more interesting. For the movie’s action scenes, “loud” and “cluttered” don’t add up to being “exciting” or “interesting.”

The family reunion part of the story involves Arthur’s estranged younger half-brother Orm (played by Patrick Wilson), the former king of Atlantis who was Arthur’s enemy in “Aquaman.” Orm (who also goes by the name Ocean Master) is a dirty, disheveled and emaciated prisoner when Arthur breaks him out of prison to help in the fight against Black Manta and Kordax. But in one of the movie’s phoniest-looking scenes, Orm magically “cleans up” and transforms into a chiseled hunk as soon as he submerges himself in some water on a beach.

Also joining the fray in this family reunion are Atlanna (played by Nicole Kidman), the mother of Arthur and Orm. Atlanna’s regal personality from the first “Aquaman” movie seems to be washed away in “Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom,” which makes her as bland and bland can be. The same can be said for Mera, whose fiery personality has been replaced with being a generic sidekick who helps out in the fight scenes. Mera’s stern father, King Nereus (played by Dolph Lundgren), is also part of Aquaman’s fight team. The main purpose of King Nereus in the movie is to be the person on the team who is most suspicious that Orm will be helpful.

All of these characters would be enough for a superhero movie. But “Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom” doesn’t trust that would be enough to entertain audiences. And so, there are myriads of creatures that populate the movie as distractions that don’t do much to further the plot. Topo, the drum-playing octopus, makes a return to help Aquaman, who doesn’t really want this pet tagging along, but his mother Atlanna insists that Topo accompany Arthur. Arthur/Aquaman acts like a teenager who doesn’t want to babysit the family dog. Kingfish (voiced by Martin Short) is a mutant sea creature who is the sarcastic leader of underwater pirates that have conflicts with residents of Atlantis.

“Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom” has some striking visuals in the Octobots:
vehicles with octopus-like metal arms that are used by Black Manta and his goons. However, even with these inventions and villainous armies doing battle against the heroes, none of it looks truly terrifying during these fight scenes. It all looks very busy, as if the filmmakers thought that throwing up a lot of computer-generated imagery (CGI) on screen is enough to create suspense.

The acting performances in “Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom” go through the motions and aren’t anything special. Momoa looks like he’s trying inject some playful energy into “Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom,” but it just dilutes the action scenes to make Aquaman into a goofball with muscles. It’s similar to how filmmaker Taika Waititi’s version of “god of thunder” Thor in Marvel movies loses the royal aura that the character had in the comic books to become a walking comedy machine that tells jokes that aren’t always funny.

Don’t expect there to be any good mid-credits or post-credits scenes in “Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom.” The mid-credits scene is meant to be amusing, but it will likely nauseate some viewers because it depicts someone eating a cockroach. There is no end-credits scene, which wouldn’t really help anyway, because this movie doesn’t have any story ideas that are fresh or surprising. “Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom” isn’t the worst superhero movie based on DC Comics, but compared to the first “Aquaman” movie, it’s like a crowd-pleasing cruise that has become a shipwreck.

Warner Bros. Pictures released “Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom” in U.S. cinemas on December 22, 2023.

Review: ‘Ambulance’ (2022), starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II and Eiza González

April 6, 2022

by Carla Hay

Jake Gyllenhaal and Eiza González in “Ambulance” (Photo by Andrew Cooper/Universal Pictures)

“Ambulance” (2022)

Directed by Michael Bay

Culture Representation: Taking place in Los Angeles, the action film “Ambulance” features a cast of predominantly white characters (with some African Americans, Latinos and Asians) representing the working-class and middle-class.

Culture Clash: A longtime bank robber, who’s white, convinces his adopted black brother to rob a bank with him, and when things go wrong, they hijack an ambulance to make their getaway.

Culture Audience: “Ambulance” will appeal primarily to people who like mindless action movies that repeat bigoted stereotypes of women and people who aren’t white.

Yahya Abdul-Mateen II and Jake Gyllenhaal in “Ambulance” (Photo by Andrew Cooper/Universal Pictures)

“Ambulance” is racist and sexist garbage that tries to cover up how stupid it is with car chases and gun shootouts. In this idiotic schlockfest, almost all black and Latino men are criminals, and women are a small minority. This movie hates black men so much, it makes the only black man in a group of bank robbers to be the one to commit the most violent and dumbest crimes. And by the end of the movie, there’s no doubt who is going to prison and who is not going to prison for the most serious crimes.

Directed by Michael Bay (who has a long history of making terrible movies) and written by Chris Fedak (in his feature-film screenwriting debut), “Ambulance” is a remake of writer/director Lars Andreas Pedersen’s 2005 Danish film “Ambulancen.” Both movies are essentially about bank robbers who make their getaway by hijacking an ambulance. The American version of “Ambulance” takes place in Los Angeles, where nearly half the population is Latino in real life. But in this horrible movie, the Latino men are criminals, and the sole Latina is a cold-hearted, difficult person who needs to be redeemed.

“Ambulance” opens with a scene that’s a very tired stereotype that’s been in too many other movies: an African American family is struggling financially. In this case, it’s the family of William “Will” Sharp (played by Yahya Abdul-Mateen II), a military war veteran who’s on the phone while he’s trying to get insurance coverage for his wife’s “experimental surgery” that his insurance won’t cover. Will and his wife Amy Sharp (played by Moses Ingram) have an infant son. Amy has cancer, although what type of cancer is never detailed in the movie. The character of Amy Sharp literally does nothing in this movie but hold a baby, look worried, and be a “stand by your man” woman, no matter how many violent crimes her husband commits.

Will is frustrated because the people he’s been dealing with at his insurance company are dismissive and downright rude. During this phone call, the insurance company employee hangs up on him when he expresses his irritation at being stonewalled. And you know what that means in a racist movie where an African American is financially desperate: The African American is going to commit a serious crime to get money.

Will has a brother named Daniel “Danny” Sharp (played by Jake Gyllenhaal), whom Amy dislikes and distrusts immensely. Amy warns Will not to contact Danny. And it’s precisely at this point in the movie that you know Will is going to contact Danny. Before Will leaves the house, he lies to Amy by saying that the insurance for her surgery was approved, and he’s going to work at a new job that he’s started. That job probably doesn’t exist.

Instead, Will goes straight to Danny, who is in a money laundering business of supervising a warehouse where wealthy people store their luxury cars. What Danny really does to make money is rob banks with his small crew of men. Later in the movie, it’s mentioned that Danny has been robbing banks since he was 17. “Ambulance” never mentions if Danny spent any time in prison for it, because the filmmakers want to make Danny look like a smooth mastermind who’s too clever to get caught.

Viewers find out during Danny and Will’s jumbled conversation in their awkward reunion that Will and Danny grew up together as brothers because Will was adopted as a very young child by Danny’s biological father, L.T. Sharp. L.T., who is now dead (for reasons not explained in the movie), is described in various parts of the movie as an evil, psychotic but brilliant criminal whose specialty was bank robberies. Not surprisingly, L.T. was the one who groomed Danny to become a bank robber, while L.T. eventually became estranged from Will. And because “Ambulance” doesn’t care about women, except to put them in the movie to react to whatever the men do, it should come as no surprise that this movie never mentions any mother that Danny and Will might have had in their lives.

Because of Danny’s criminal lifestyle, Will has been estranged from Danny for a long time, although how long is never detailed in the movie. What the movie does show more than once is the racism when people try to insult Will by saying that he’s not Danny’s “real” brother, because Will is black, and Danny is white. Will tells Danny that he needs $231,000 for Amy’s surgery. Danny says that he doesn’t have the money, but that he and his crew are about to commit a major bank robbery that day, in a theft where they expect to get $32 million.

Danny tells Will that Will can get more than enough of the money that he needs if Will is a part of the bank robbery. (The robbers’ target is Los Angeles Federal Bank & Trust, which is a fictional bank name for this movie. In real life, the movie’s bank scenes were filmed at a former branch of Bank of America.) And to put even more pressure on Will, Danny tells Will that Will has just five minutes to decide before they leave for the heist. We all know what Will decides, because almost all of the mayhem in “Ambulance” wouldn’t exist without Will’s bad decisions.

Meanwhile, viewers are introduced to Camille “Cam” Thompson (played by Eiza González), the only woman in “Ambulance” who has more than 10 minutes of dialogue in the movie. The filmmakers of “Ambulance” want viewers to forget that women and girls are 51% of the population in the U.S. and in the world. Cam (she insists on being called Cam, not Camille) is a very jaded and egotistical lead field-training officer of Falck Company’s Ambulance No. 3.

As an emergency medical technician (EMT), Cam is technically very proficient in her job, but her personality is emotionally detached and off-putting. She’s first seen responding to an emergency scene, where somehow a girl named Lindsey (played by Briella Guiza), who’s about 8 or 9 years old, has gotten a spike from a wrought-iron fence embedded in her abdomen. (The accident is not shown in the movie.) In the ambulance, Cam attends to Lindsey and talks to Lindsey’s frantic mother (played by Jenn Proske) in a way that is almost robotic. Cam says all the right things, but there’s no real empathy in her voice, and she often gets irritable with the people who need her help.

After Lindsey is taken to the hospital, Cam has a conversation with a new EMT trainee named Scott Daskins (played by Colin Woodell), who seems to be romantically attracted to Cam. Scott looks disappointed when Cam tells him that she’s dating a doctor who works at a local hospital. In this conversation, Cam makes it clear that the people with whom she comes in contact on the job are just names to her, and she just moves on to the next assignment. Cam advises Scott to take the same emotionally disconnected approach to the job, because she says it’s the best way to deal with all the trauma that they witness.

Later, when Cam and Scott have a meal together at a diner, Cam gets somewhat of a rude awakening when Scott tells her how much she’s disliked by her co-workers. Scott says that although Cam is considered one of the best EMTs on the job when it comes to the technical responsibilities, she has a reputation for being unlikable and “no one wants to be your partner.” Cam looks a little hurt and shocked by this revelation, but it still shows how huge her ego is that she has no self-awareness about how being cold and unfeeling to other people can make people dislike her. It’s at this point in the movie that you know Cam is going to get some “life lessons” that will possibly redeem her and her obnoxious attitude.

Danny has meticulously planned the bank robbery. But, of course, some unexpected things don’t go according to the plan. Danny has a motley crew of about six or seven robbers on this heist, including a hippie-ish dimwit named Trent (played by Brendan Miller), who insists on wearing Birkenstock sandals to the bank robbery, and he gets teased repeatedly about his choice of shoes. There’s also a hulking dolt nicknamed Mel Gibson (played by Devan Chandler Long), because Danny thinks the guy wears his long, bushy beard like a 13th century Scottish warrior in Mel Gibson’s Oscar-winning movie “Braveheart.” Apparently, Danny and the “Ambulance” filmmakers forgot that Gibson didn’t have a beard in “Braveheart.”

What Danny and his crew didn’t anticipate was that a rookie cop named Zach Parker (played by Jackson White) from the Los Angeles Police Department would insist on coming in the bank, without Zach knowing that a robbery was taking place at that exact moment. At this point in the robbery, Danny (who’s dressed in casual business wear) has locked the entrance door and disguised himself as the bank manager, by wearing the manager’s name tag. Zach wants to go in the bank to ask a bank teller named Kim (played by Kayli Tran) out on a date, because Zach has had a crush on Kim for a while.

While Zach’s more experienced, corporal-ranked cop partner Mark Ranshaw (played by Cedric Sanders) waits outside, Zach approaches the bank’s front door, while Danny tells him that the bank is temporarily closed and refuses to let Zach inside. Zach persists on being let in the bank and says that his reason for being in the bank won’t take long. Danny finally relents and lets Zach in, so as not to arouse suspicion.

Zach notices that he’s the only customer in the bank, but he doesn’t seem too concerned about it, because Danny told him that the bank was closed. Kim just happens to be at a bank teller window. Zach asks Danny what Kim’s last name is, and Danny quickly makes up a lie. Zach nervously asks Kim out on the date. When Zach notices that Kim is crying in distress, and that her last name on her name tag isn’t the same last name that Danny told him, Danny blows his cover and pulls a gun on Zach. Outside the bank, police officer Mark sees through the bank window that there’s an armed robbery in progress and calls for backup.

And that’s when all hell breaks loose. In the chaos of the robbers trying to get away, Will ends up shooting Zach in the leg. Much later in the movie, they find out that Zach was also shot in his spleen. During this desperate getaway, the rest of the robbers scatter outside, while Will and Danny stick together and hide in the bank. An ambulance is called for Zach, so Scott and Cam are the ambulance EMTs who arrive on the scene. The bank is surrounded by cops, and the robbers’ getaway driver becomes unavailable. And so, a trapped Will and Danny decide to hijack the ambulance to make their getaway.

Scott gets knocked down on the ground, while Danny and Will steal the ambulance, with Will driving and suddenly having the skills of a professional stunt driver throughout the rest of the movie. Cam is in the back of the ambulance while trying to give medical treatment to Zach, who is bleeding profusely and mostly unconscious during this entire ordeal. Danny, who alternates between the front and the back of the ambulance, thinks that he and Will should have more leverage if Cam and Zach are held as hostages.

It’s all just an excuse for “Ambulance” to show a lot of shaky cam chase footage and bombastic action scenes, with a lot of yelling and wreckage along the way. At various points in this moronic movie, Will punches Zach in the face to get him to shut up and render Zach unconscious; Danny tells a lot of bad jokes; and Cam (who’s not qualified to do surgery) does very unsanitary emergency spleen surgery on Zach, by getting videoconference advice from doctors on the ambulance’s laptop computer. Yes, it’s that kind of movie. And there are more silly shenanigans, such as people who are seriously injured and unconscious who then suddenly wake up as if they just took a harmless nap, or civilians show up at active crime scenes while law enforcement gives the kind of access to these civilians that wouldn’t be allowed in real life.

Meanwhile, the Los Angeles Police Department’s S.I.S. (Secret Intelligence Service) team, led by an arrogant, macho imbecile named Captain Tyler Monroe (played by Garret Dillahunt), gets involved in the chase. Captain Monroe and his S.I.S. team were actually undercover and waiting outside the bank during the robbery, because they laid a trap when they heard that this bank might be targeted for a robbery, but Danny and Will still managed to escape. Some members of the S.I.S. (who are almost all white) unfairly blame Zach’s cop partner Mark for Zach getting shot, in a scene that has racist overtones because Mark is African American.

Captain Monroe makes dumb mistakes after dumb mistakes in his bungled efforts to capture these bank robbers. There’s a scene in the movie where Captain Monroe tells his subordinates to temporarily halt because he wants to rescue his English mastiff dog Nitro, who was unwittingly left in the back seat of one of the cars giving chase. Trivia note: Nitro’s real name is Nitro Zeus (named after a “Transformers” robot villain), and he is the real-life dog of “Ambulance” director/producer Bay, who has directed most of and produced all of the “Transformers” movies so far.

The LAPD isn’t the only law enforcement to get involved in the chase. An uptight FBI agent named Anson Clark (played by Keir O’Donnell) gets called to the scene. He gets the call while he’s in the middle of couples therapy with his husband Kyle (played by Brendan Robinson), who is very annoyed that Anson has to rush off and do his FBI job of catching criminals and trying to save people’s lives. Because “Ambulance” is such a badly made movie, Anson is the only FBI agent who’s shown doing any real work in this case.

And predictably, “new school” FBI Agent Clark (who wears suits on the job) and “old school” Captain Monroe (who wears camouflage pants and a baseball cap on the job) have opposite personalities and ways of working, so they clash with each other. But there’s an extra twist to Anson’s involvement in this case: Anson soon reveals that he knows Danny from their college days, when they both studied criminology at the University of Maryland. By the way, the law enforcement in “Ambulance” is depicted as completely incompetent and slow in doing background checks when they find out the identities of the bank robbers.

“Ambulance” tries to inject some comedy to lighten the mood of the intense violence and chase scenes, but it doesn’t erase the ugly stench of racism, sexism and overall stupid filmmaking that pollute this movie. Other than Cam, the movie’s only other female character who gets more than five minutes of dialogue is LAPD Lieutenant Dzaghig (played by Olivia Stambouliah), who talks for less than 10 minutes in the film. Her role is to be Captain Monroe’s sidekick, who delivers wisecracks in a deadpan manner.

Danny utters most of the tacky jokes in “Ambulance,” because the filmmakers want to portray Danny as an unhinged but lovable rogue who can laugh at himself and others around him. In a scene where Danny gets sprayed with a fire extinguisher, Danny is upset that the water ruined his clothing. “It’s cashmere!” Danny yells to no one in particular. During another part of the movie, Danny leads a bonkers sing-along to Christopher Cross’ 1979 hit “Sailing.”

Will is just there to follow Danny’s orders. On the surface, Will is portrayed as more sensitive and less prone to violence than Danny. However, based on who Will decides to shoot in the movie (Zach isn’t his only shooting victim), Will is not mentally stable at all. Will’s decisions actually make him look more violent and more foolish than everyone else in this bank robber crew, including Danny. Danny isn’t off the hook for dumb decisions either, because holding a wounded cop hostage after committing a bank robbery is almost a sure-fire way for criminals to get even harsher prison sentences, if the criminals aren’t killed by police during the hostage crisis.

As for Cam, she really is just another token lead female in a Michael Bay action movie, where she ends up with makeup that stays perfectly intact throughout the entire messy ordeal. Even her sweat looks polished. Sure, Cam has some fake-looking marks on her face that’s supposed to resemble dirt, and her clothes get somewhat ripped and “bloodied” in the pandemonium. But somehow, her bright red lipstick and other face cosmetic makeup never get smeared and remain perfectly contoured in ways that are unrealistic for anyone who goes through what Cam goes through in this insufferable film.

The only other Latinos with speaking roles in “Ambulance” are criminals, led by a menacing thug named Hector “Papi” Gutierrez (played by A Martinez), who owns an automobile warehouse/chop shop in downtown Los Angeles. Danny calls on Papi during the chase when Danny needs help. Papi used to work for L.T. Sharp, so he’s known Danny for a long time and is almost like an “uncle” to Danny.

And because “Ambulance” is a cesspool of empty-headed, racist clichés, there’s a buffoon African American character named Castro (played by Wale Folarin, also known as rapper Wale), who is portrayed as Danny’s most vapid subordinate. There’s a part of the movie where Danny tells Castro to meet him in a designated area to spray paint the entire exterior of the ambulance in less than two minutes, which is a dopey and unrealistic request in and of itself. Instead of bringing the requested blue paint, Castro brings neon green paint to do the job.

None of the cast members in this movie does anything great. In fact, they frequently embarrass themselves with all the junk dialogue they have to say and witless scenarios that they have to enact. “Ambulance” drags out the chase scenes to ridiculous levels, but ironically, the movie has probably the shortest time length for end credits of any major studio film released this year. That’s assuming anyone wants to stick around for the end credits after enduring this train wreck of a movie.

Anyone who is okay with this type of “entertainment” is okay with tone-deaf Hollywood filmmakers churning out bigoted and outdated content because these arrogant filmmakers think most movie audiences are too dumb to care. Needless to say, “Ambulance” is a sloppy and inferior remake of the original movie. If you care about supporting quality entertainment that doesn’t insult your intelligence, do not waste your time with “Ambulance,” which is nothing but mind-numbing trash with a major studio budget.

Universal Pictures will release “Ambulance” in U.S. cinemas on April 8, 2022.

Review: ‘The Matrix Resurrections’ starring Keanu Reeves, Carrie-Anne Moss, Jessica Henwick, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Jonathan Groff, Neil Patrick Harris and Jada Pinkett Smith

December 23, 2021

by Carla Hay

“The Matrix Resurrections”

Directed by Lana Wachowski

Culture Representation: Taking place in San Francisco, Tokyo and various parts of the universe, the sci-fi action flick “The Matrix Resurrections” features a racially diverse cast of characters (white, African American and Asian) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: Thomas Anderson, also known as universe-saving hero Neo, gets pulled out of his “normal” life and back into the Matrix, as he strives to reunite with his long-lost love Trinity.

Culture Audience: “The Matrix Revolutions” will appeal primarily to people who are die-hard fans of “The Matrix” franchise and star Keanu Reeves, because everyone else will be easily lose interest in the movie’s jumbled and monotonous plot.

Jessica Henwick, Keanu Reeves and Yahya Abdul-Mateen II in “The Matrix Resurrections” (Photo by Murray Close/Warner Bros. Pictures)

If you’re not familiar with any of the previous “Matrix” movies, then “The Matrix Resurrections” doesn’t care about you. The visual effects and stunts are dazzling, but this sci-fi/action movie’s plot is convoluted and duller than it should have been. Many people who’ve seen the previous Matrix movies will get confused or bored. You really need encyclopedic “Matrix” knowledge and an excellent memory to keep track of all the references to the previous “Matrix” movies that “The Matrix Resurrections” keeps dumping in the story without a proper explanation or much context.

Even if you prepare to watch “The Matrix Resurrections” by watching or re-watching the previous “Matrix” movies, you’ll notice that “The Matrix Resurrections” doesn’t do anything clever or innovative with the story. It’s just a tangled and tedious retelling of a basic adventure concept of a male hero going to a lot of trouble to impress and save the woman he loves.

In “The Matrix Resurrections,” which is the fourth movie in “The Matrix” film series, Lana Wachowski returns as a solo director, after co-directing the previous three “Matrix” films with her younger sister, Lilly Wachowski. The three previous films are 1999’s “The Matrix” (still the best one in the series), 2003’s “The Matrix Reloaded” and 2003’s “The Matrix Revolutions.” The first “Matrix” movie earned four well-deserved Academy Awards: Best Visual Efects, Best Film Editing, Best Sound Editing and Best Sound Mixing.

Lana Wachowski co-wrote “The Matrix Resurrections” with David Mitchell and Aleksandar Hemon. These screenwriters have a clear disregard for the possibility that “The Matrix Resurrections” might be the first “Matrix” movie that some people will ever see. There is almost no attempt in “The Matrix Resurrections” to clearly explain what happened in the previous “Matrix” movies. When familiar characters appear in “The Matrix Resurrections,” viewers who are new to the franchise will not have an understanding of how these characters are relevant to the story, unless viewers know what these characters did in the previous “Matrix” movies.

There are some flashback scenes in “The Matrix Resurrections,” but they do little or nothing to explain the purpose of the characters who are shown in the flashbacks. Pity anyone who watches “The Matrix Resurrections” without this basic knowledge: Thomas Anderson, also known as Neo (played by Keanu Reeves), is the chosen hero, who is called The One, in an ongoing battle over control of humans and other beings in the universe. There’s an alternate world called the Matrix, where people are under the delusion that the world they live in is reality, but the Matrix is in fact a simulated reality.

In the first “Matrix” movie, Neo had a mentor named Morpheus (played by Laurence Fishburne), who gave Neo the choice between taking a blue pill or a red pill. The blue pill would ensure that Neo would continue to live a blissful but delusional existence. The red pill would open Neo’s eyes to the truth. Neo took the red pill.

During Neo’s battle to save the universe in the first “Matrix” movie, Neo met another warrior named Trinity (played by Carrie-Anne Moss), and they fell in love. Neo and Trinity are soul mates and the biggest love of each other’s life. Their biggest nemesis was Agent Smith (played by Hugo Weaving), who had the ability to shapeshift and morph into other people or clones of himself. This is an essential detail to have some understanding of “The Matrix Resurrections,” because when Agent Smith’s name is first uttered in the movie and he appears in disguise, viewers need to know why this character is such a big deal.

At the beginning of “The Matrix Reurrections,” which does a lot of time-jumping and traveling between various realities, Neo/Thomas is “retired” from his “saving the universe” legacy. He’s living and working in San Francisco as an award-winning, legendary video game designer at a company he co-founded called Deus Machina, where he works with people who are mostly in their 20s and 30s. Thomas is famous because he designed a blockbuster video game series called “The Matrix” that’s based on his own experiences.

Even though Thomas has achieved the pinnacle of success in this industry, he remains humble and low-key. His ambitious and greedy business partner Smith (played by Jonathan Groff) has coaxed a reluctant Thomas to do a fourth installment of “The Matrix” video game series. Smith mentions that Deus Machina’s parent company is Warner Bros., which is the movie’s way of referencing “The Matrix” movie franchise distributor Warner Bros. Pictures. There’s a self-deprecating “wink wink, nudge nudge” tone to the number of times that “The Matrix Resurrections” refers to this fourth installment (of Thomas’s video game series and this movie) as being a cash grab, until the joke is repeated so many times that it gets very old.

As for business partner Smith, the significance of the name is so obvious, when a big reveal about this character arrives, it’s actually no big surprise. (This reveal is already in one of the movie’s trailers.) He’s slick and has some high-octane fight scenes, but he’s not a particularly interesting adversary when he gets into conflicts with Thomas/Neo. Much like “The Matrix Resurrections,” Smith in this movie is very superficial and flashy with not much substance.

Thomas/Neo has been having nightmares or hallucinations, so he’s in therapy. And if he seems like a heartbroken loner, that’s because he is. He’s still pining for Trinity. But he’ll get his chance to reunite with her, because that’s essentially the main goal in this muddled film that takes too long (two hours and 28 minutes) to tell a story that could’ve been told in two hours or less.

Whenever “The Matrix Resurrections” gets stuck in a plot rut (and it happens a lot), it shows Thomas waking up from a “hallucination,” and he’s in the therapist office of his unnamed analyst (played by Neil Patrick Harris), who seems to know everything about Thomas. There’s a scene in the movie where Thomas/Neo looks in a mirror and finds out that his physical appearance is not what he thinks it is: He looks like an elderly man (played by Steven Roy) to many people.

The movie keeps people guessing on what’s reality and what’s not reality for Thomas/Neo, until it reaches a point when a lot of viewers won’t care much anymore. “The Matrix Resurrections” has too many gimmicks that are meant to deliberately confuse viewers. After a while, all these gimmicks are a turnoff. A big reveal toward the end the movie is not surprising because the movie telegraphs it many times.

Thomas’ identity as Neo has long been dormant, because most people think Neo is dead. However, a young computer hacker named Bugs (played by Jessica Henwick) has discovered that Neo is alive and well. In flashbacks, Bugs tells people how she found out: She works as a skyscraper window washer and saw Neo disguised as another man as he was about to jump off a nearby high-rise building. Bugs saw Neo jump off of the building and survive, so Bugs has been on a quest to find Neo ever since.

Of course, in a movie like “The Matrix Resurrections,” Bugs is no ordinary window washer/computer hacker. She has combat skills on the level of a super-soldier in a video game. Bugs has a computer hacking sidekick named Sequoia (played by Toby Onwumere), who’s mostly a virtual reality operator telling her what’s going on in alternate realities. Don’t expect a logical explanation for many of the identities of the new characters introduced in “The Matrix Resurrections.” It just seems like the filmmakers just made up things as they went along.

Bugs finds Neo, of course, and she takes it upon herself to be his “protector” when things go awry. Another person who finds Neo is the young-man version of Morpheus (played by Yahya Abdul-Mateen II), who predictably brings out that red pill and blue pill again for Neo to choose which path Neo’s life will take. However, anyone who’s seen any of the previous “Matrix” movies knows that Neo’s life was pre-ordained anyway.

One day, Thomas/Neo is hanging out at a coffee shop with a Deus Machina co-worker named Jude Gallagher (played by Andrew Lewis Caldwell), when Thomas/Neo sees Trinity, and Jude notices that Thomas/Neo seems attracted to her. However, Thomas/Neo pretends to Jude that he’s never met Trinity before. Thomas/Neo is too shy to approach her, so Jude (who tells Thomas/Neo that he thinks she’s a “MILF”) approaches Trinity on behalf of Thomas/Neo and makes the introduction.

Thomas/Neo is dismayed to find out that Trinity’s memory appears to have been blocked or erased, because she doesn’t know him when he starts talking to her. She’s now living as a woman named Tiffany, who builds and repairs motorcycles for a living. She’s also married to a guy named Chad (played by “John Wick” series director Chad Stahelski) and they have three underage kids together. At the coffee shop, Neo briefly meets Chad and two of the kids.

Later in the movie, Thomas/Neo and Trinity/Tiffany meet again at the same coffee shop, where she tells him that she thinks that she looks like Trinity in “The Matrix” video games. Trinity/Tiffany also says that when she mentioned the physical resemblance to her husband, he just laughed at her. It’s the first sign that Trinity/Tiffany might have a glimmer of recognition that maybe she had another life with Neo that has long been buried.

It’s enough to convince Neo to want to save Trinity from her blocked memory and get her back in his life. Along the way, he gets in numerous fights with people, creatures and machines that want to stop him in this quest. Bugs and Morpheus are also in most of these fight scenes with Neo. Also along for the ride to help Neo are young, good-looking combat warriors Lexy (played by Eréndira Ibarra) and Berg (played by Brian J. Smith), who look like they came from a modeling agency assembly line.

If you don’t know the purpose of Agents and Sentinels in the “Matrix” movies, then skip “The Matrix Resurrections.” If you have no idea who Niobe (played by Jada Pinkett Smith) and Sati (played as an adult by Priyanka Chopra Jonas) are and why they’re important to “The Matrix” saga, then skip “The Matrix Resurrections.” If you don’t care about the differences between the battle ships Nebuchadnezzar, the Hammer, and the Logos, then skip “The Matrix Resurrections.”

Simply put: “The Matrix Resurrections” can be extremely alienating to anyone who isn’t a die-hard, obsessive “Matrix” fan. Sometimes, people just want to turn their brain off and watch an action-filled sci-fi movie. But most viewers don’t want to watch a movie sequel where their brains have to work overtime trying to figure out what’s going on and who certain characters are. And some of the characters didn’t need to be in the movie at all, such as Deus Machina executive Gwyn de Vere (played by Christina Ricci), which is a small, inconsequential role that’s a waste of Ricci’s talent.

If viewers get confused over what’s going in “The Matrix Resurrections,” it’s because “The Matrix Resurrections” filmmakers made the arrogant assumption that everyone watching should have seen all the previous “Matrix” movies. Therefore, a lot of “inside jokes” in “The Matrix Resurrections” are not as impactful as they could’ve been if the previous three “Matrix” movies had been better explained in “The Matrix Resurrections.” However, the screenplay and editing still make the movie very difficult to follow for people who’ve seen the previous “Matrix” movies but have hazy memories about them.

In between the action scenes of “The Matrix Resurrections” are characters standing around or sitting in meetings that are quite boring. A great deal of what they discuss is shared history that will be meaningless to viewers who don’t know anything about this shared history because they haven’t seen the previous “Matrix” movies. It’s like going to a class reunion when you never even went to the school.

Although the visual effects and stunts are the best things of “The Matrix Resurrections,” they’re not enough to make the movie feel like a relatable human saga. All of the acting is mediocre or just plain awful. The dialogue isn’t much better.

The movie’s attempts at comedy usually fall flat, including the silly and useless end-credits scene. Throughout the movie, Reeves seems like he’s sleepwalking through some of his lines of dialogue. That’s not what you want for a protagonist in what’s supposed to be a high-energy action flick.

“The Matrix Resurrections” seems so enamored with its parade of sci-fi and technological tricks, it fails to bring enough in the story that will make viewers feel connected to the characters in a relatable way. Unfortunately, “The Matrix Resurrections” leaves new viewers of the franchise in the dark about essential, interpersonal histories about many of the characters. Other viewers who know all about familiar “Matrix” characters before seeing “The Matrix Resurrections” might still end up feeling disconnected and disappointed that they haven’t learned anything fascinating at all.

Warner Bros. Pictures released “The Matrix Resurrections” in U.S. cinemas and on HBO Max on December 22, 2021.

Review: ‘Candyman’ (2021), starring Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Teyonah Parris, Nathan Stewart-Jarrett and Colman Domingo

August 25, 2021

by Carla Hay

Yahya Abdul-Mateen II in “Candyman” (Photo courtesy of Universal Pictures)

“Candyman” (2021)

Directed by Nia DaCosta

Culture Representation: Taking place in Chicago, the horror film “Candyman” features a predominantly African American cast of characters (with some white people and a few Asians) representing the middle-class and working-class.

Culture Clash: An up-and-coming conceptual artist (whose latest art exhibition explores themes of racism against black people) experiences the horror of Candyman, a legendary African American ghost representing black people who have been the targets of violent racism.

Culture Audience: “Candyman” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the 1992 “Candyman” movie, filmmaker Jordan Peele and horror movies that have themes of racial inequalities and social justice.

Teyonah Parris and Yahya Abdul-Mateen II in “Candyman” (Photo courtesy of Universal Pictures)

The 2021 movie “Candyman” is not a remake/reboot of the 1992 horror movie “Candyman” It’s a very worthy sequel that takes a more creative and more socially conscious approach to race relations and racist violence than the first “Candyman” movie. The 2021 “Candyman” somewhat sputters out toward the end, almost like the filmmakers ran out of ideas of how the story should conclude. But most of the movie strikes the right balance of paying homage to the original “Candyman” while coming up with its own clever sequel story.

The fact that the 2021 “Candyman” movie is a sequel, not a remake/reboot, is hinted at in the movie’s first trailer, which briefly features Vanessa Estelle Williams, who was a cast member of the original “Candyman” movie. She makes a non-flashback cameo in the 2021 “Candyman” that is memorable and not too surprising, considering her character’s story line in 1992’s “Candyman.” And there’s another non-flashback cameo from another original “Candyman” cast member that is supposed to be a sudden plot twist, but this person’s appearance is not really a surprise. It would only be a surprise if this person wasn’t in this sequel.

One the main differences in the 2021 “Candyman” movie and the 1992 “Candyman” movie is that the latter film now has diversity in the race and gender of the writers, producers and directors. The 1992 “Candyman” had only white men as the director, writer and producers. Meanwhile, 2021’s “Candyman” has an African American woman as the director/co-writer (Nia DaCosta) and an African American man (Jordan Peele) as a co-writer/producer.

DaCosta and Peele co-wrote the 2021 “Candyman” screenplay with Win Rosenfeld, who is one of the producers of the film. Ian Cooper is the other producer of 2021’s “Candyman.” Peele was the first black person to win an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay; it was for his 2017 horror film “Get Out.” He has said in many interviews that he wants the horror movies that he writes and produces to explore themes of racism and race relations.

Peele was originally going to direct this “Candyman” sequel, but instead handed over the directorial reins to DaCosta. “Candyman” is her second feature film, and it shows that she has immense talent, especially when it comes to crafting visuals that are perfectly suited for the story. It’s rare for a horror movie directed by a woman of color to be released worldwide by a major studio. Let’s hope that “Candyman” is a step in the right direction for more opportunities to be opened up to talented and qualified women of color directors for horror movies, a genre that is overwhelmingly dominated by white male directors.

People don’t need to see the 1992 “Candyman” to understand the 2021 “Candyman” movie, which does an excellent job of recapping and explaining the original “Candyman” film. Candyman is a mysterious and vengeful ghost of an African American man who died because of racist violence. Both movies takes place in Chicago, but the themes in both films speak to universal and ugly truths about how racism is usually the reason why black people are harmed by people of other races.

In the 1992 “Candyman” movie, Candyman’s real name was Daniel Robitaille (played by Tony Todd), an artist/slave’s son who was murdered by a racist white mob in 1890. Why was he murdered? He and Caroline Sullivan, the daughter of a white aristocrat, fell in love with each other, and she got pregnant. Daniel met Caroline because her father had hired Daniel to paint her portrait.

Before he was murdered, right-handed Daniel’s right hand was amputated. As a ghost, he now has a hook where his right hand was. The angry mob of people who killed Daniel covered him in honey and unloaded a swarm of bees onto him. The ghost of Candyman is supposed to appear when someone looks in a mirror and chants “Candyman” five times. If there are bees nearby, that means Candyman could be somewhere close.

In the 1992 “Candyman” movie, university graduate student Helen Lyle (played by Virginia Madsen) is researching the Candyman legend for a doctorate thesis. Candyman is summoned, and he ends up wreaking havoc in Helen’s life, as she is blamed for murders that Candyman committed. In the movie, Williams portrays a single mother named Anne-Marie McCoy, whose baby son was kidnapped. Anne-Marie lives in Chicago’s low-income Cabrini-Green area, where many of the African American residents believe that Candyman is real.

One of the criticisms that the original “Candyman” got was how a movie that was supposed to be about an African American ghost haunted by racist trauma instead centered the story on a white woman who was being blamed for a black man’s crimes. In addition, there was a sexual component to why Candyman specifically targeted Helen (it’s explained why in the movie), as if Candyman’s main priority was to go after a white woman as a sexual conquest. It played into the same racist stereotypes that got Candyman murdered.

The 2021 “Candyman” movie attempts to remedy some of these problematic racial depictions, by making toxic people the targets of Candyman’s wrath. There’s a middle-aged boss who abuses his power by sleeping with his willing young adult female interns, because he implies that he’ll give them career rewards if they sleep with him. There’s a racially condescending art critic who has no problem exploiting black people’s pain in art if it means she’ll get some glory from writing about it. There’s a small group of “mean girls” in high school who bully an African American female student. And, not surprisingly, racist white cops are the biggest villains in the story.

In the 2021 “Candyman,” up-and-coming conceptual artist Anthony McCoy (played by Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) decides to make the Candyman legend the theme for an art installation that is part of a gallery display. Anthony’s live-in girlfriend Brianna Cartwright (played by Teyonah Parris) is a curator at the gallery, which is owned by her boss Clive Privler (played by Mike Davis), who is very impressed with Anthony’s talent. Anthony hasn’t been able to make money as an artist for quite some time, so this gallery exhibit is a big career boost for him.

Before he creates the art installation, Anthony does more research into the Candyman legend by going to the places in the area formerly known as Cabrini-Green, where Candyman was known to haunt. In real life, the Cabrini-Green housing project’s buildings were torn down from 1995 to 2011, to make way for gentrification. While in the former Cabrini-Green area, Anthony gets stung by a bee on his right hand.

Anthony also meets someone named William Burke (played by Colman Domingo), who claims to have seen Candyman. It happened when William was about 11 or 12 years old. Back then, William went by the name Billy (played by Rodney L. Jones III), who grew up in Cabrini-Green.

Billy first saw this man named Sherman Fields (played by Michael Hargrove) literally come out of a hole in the wall of public laundry room to offer William some candy. (It’s one of the creepier scenes in the movie.) At the time, someone was going around the neighborhood giving kids candy that had razor blades hidden in the candy.

Did Sherman do the same thing to Billy? That question is answered in the movie. But it’s enough to say that a sketch of Sherman is on a “Wanted” poster that the cops have posted in the neighborhood. Billy is frightened by this stranger and sees him as Candyman. Billy yells for help. Some patrol officers who were staked out in their car nearby storm into the room to rescue Billy and arrest Sherman. Things do not end well for Sherman, an unarmed black man surrounded by white police officers.

It’s not spoiler information to say that the 2021 “Candyman” movie takes the approach that several black men who were murdered by angry and racist white people could become Candyman. William says in the movie: “Candyman is how we deal with the fact that it’s happened—that it’s still happening.” At another point in the movie, William says, “Candyman ain’t a ‘he.’ Candyman’s the whole damn hive.”

“Candyman” also has plenty of social commentary on gentrification. Cabrini-Green has been renamed the North Side, which is the home of upscale residential buildings that were developed as low-income people were priced out of the neighborhood, and higher-income people (usually white) moved in. Anthony and Brianna live in one of these upscale high-rise buildings.

Brianna comes from a cultured and educated family, so her background is very different from Anthony’s background. But that doesn’t mean she had a perfect childhood, because she’s haunted by a childhood tragedy that’s revealed in this movie. Brianna’s openly gay and sassy younger brother Troy (played by Nathan Stewart-Jarrett) provides much of the comic relief and “real talk” in the movie. He has a new-ish boyfriend named Grady (played by Kyle Kaminsky), who is as laid-back as Troy is energetic.

Troy is the one who actually tells Brianna and Anthony the legend of Candyman. It’s in an early scene in the film where Anthony and Brianna have invited Troy and Grady over to dinner for a small housewarming celebration, since Anthony and Brianna have recently moved into this loft apartment. Brianna scoffs at the idea of believing in ghosts, while Anthony is intrigued. Once he hears about Candyman and looks further into Candyman stories, he’s inspired to make it a theme for his current art installation. And it’s about time that Anthony gets paid for his work, because Troy is starting to disapprove of Anthony being constantly broke while Brianna has to pay all of the couple’s bills.

Brianna, Troy and some of the black people who interact with them at the art gallery represent the educated African Americans who too often are overlooked or underrepresented in American-made movies. The 1992 “Candyman” movie had some of this representation with Helen’s best friend Bernadette “Bernie” Walsh (played by Kasi Lemmons), who was also Helen’s partner in writing their doctoral thesis. However, the rest of the black people in the first “Candyman” movie were working-class or poor people from the ghetto.

Brianna and Troy are immersed in the art world. Their late father Gil Cartwright (seen in a flashback and played by Cedric Mays) was an artist. Brianna also mentions at one point in the movie that up until Troy started dating Grady, Troy had a pattern of dating European artists. The movie shows what often happens when black people have to navigate in an industry dominated by white people, some who are often racially condescending, racially insensitive or downright racist when it comes to judging people who aren’t white.

The snooty art critic Finley Stephens (played by Rebecca Spence) represents this entitled mindset of white supremacy. When she first sees Anthony’s at installation at the gallery, she dismisses it as mediocre and trite depictions of racial injustice, possibly because what she sees in the art installation makes her uncomfortable. But when certain murders happen and start to be linked to the Candyman legend, Anthony’s art gets a lot of media attention.

And suddenly, Finley changes her tune. She praises Anthony for being a visionary and arranges to interview him for an article. It’s an example of how some white people who are media influencers only seem to care about up-and-coming black artists when those artists are getting attention from media outlets that have a mostly white audience. When Finley interviews Anthony, more of her racial condescension is on display.

“Candyman” is a visually compelling movie that makes use of shadow puppetry to tell parts of the Candyman story. It’s a better alternative than using live actors to re-enact the racist violence that’s in the movie. DaCosta brings a confident tone to her horror storytelling, which remains grounded in realism, even as supernatural occurrences are happening around the characters. The first “Candyman” movie had some over-the-top hokey moments, but the 2021 “Candyman” movie never lets you forget that racist violence is a real-life horror story for too many people.

There are also some gruesome but realistic-looking visual effects and makeup, especially when Anthony’s bee sting turns into an alarming infection that spreads through his right arm and beyond. Musically, the 2021 “Candyman” movie score by Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe (also known as Lichens) skillfully builds off of Philip Glass’ memorable score for the 1992 “Candyman,” including Glass’ haunting piano refrain that has become the franchise’s musical signature. Violence and gore are expected, but they aren’t gratuitous or exploitative in the 2021 “Candyman” movie. The point of the movie is to show that racism and revenge for racist crimes create a vicious cycle where there are no real winners.

The casting of this “Candyman” film is top-notch. The result is acting that is superior to the average horror movie. Everyone plays their roles well, with Abdul-Mateen, Domingo and Stewart-Jarrett as particular standouts. But realistically, no one in this cast is going to be nominated for Oscars because the acting isn’t Oscar-caliber. And this “Candyman” movie could have had more speaking roles for Asians and Hispanics.

The plot starts to get a little messy in the last 20 minutes of the film. Now that viewers know that several people could be Candyman, there could be an untold number of “Candyman” sequels. However, future “Candyman” sequels are better served by limiting the Candyman character to being depicted by just one person per movie and giving that person an interesting character arc. Otherwise, too many Candymen in a movie can spoil the story.

Universal Pictures will release “Candyman” in U.S. cinemas on August 27, 2021.

Review: ‘The Trial of the Chicago 7,’ starring Eddie Redmayne, Sacha Baron Cohen, Jeremy Strong, Mark Rylance, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Frank Langella and Michael Keaton

December 29, 2020

by Carla Hay

“The Trial of the Chicago 7”

Directed by Aaron Sorkin

Culture Representation: Taking place from 1968 to 1970, primarily in Chicago and briefly in Washington, D.C., the dramatic film “The Trial of the Chicago 7” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with some African Americans) representing the middle-class and upper-class.

Culture Clash: Eight men accused of inciting riots during the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago go on trial in a case that exemplified the conflicts between the “establishment government” and “radical activists.”

Culture Audience: “The Trial of the Chicago 7″ will appeal primarily to people interested in dramatic interpretations of real political and legal events in American history during the Vietnam War, with the stories being unapologetically sympathetic to progressive liberal politics.

Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Ben Shenkman, Mark Rylance, Eddie Redmayne and Alex Sharp in “The Trial of the Chicago 7” (Photo by Nico Tavernise/Netflix)

“The Trial of the Chicago 7” might as well have been called “The Showcase of Sacha Baron Cohen.” Although the movie has a big ensemble cast, he ends up stealing the show in his portrayal of left-wing activist Abbie Hoffman. This elevation of Hoffman as the “star” of the story is entirely by design, since “The Trial of Chicago 7” writer/director Aaron Sorkin has a reputation for not allowing actors to improvise in the movies that he writes and directs.

Taking place mostly in Chicago from 1968 to 1970, amid protests against the controversial Vietnam War, “The Trial of the Chicago 7” seems entirely calculated to win as many prestigious awards as possible. “The Trial of Chicago 7” exposes those ambitions too blatantly for it to feel like a truly immersive cinematic experience. The results are that viewers will feel constantly reminded that they’re watching showboat performances and re-enactments rather than being transported to experiencing the genuine emotions of the real-life people involved in this story.

Sorkin (who won an Oscar for writing the 2010 movie “The Social Network”) delivers the type of articulate and verbose screenplay that people would expect from the Emmy-winning former showrunner of “The West Wing.” “The Trial of Chicago 7” has got plenty of sociopolitical commentary that makes conservatives look like villains, and liberals look like heroes. (Sorkin is an outspoken liberal in real life.) There’s also a lot of snappy dialogue with witty one-liners and feisty arguments. And the film editing, which jumps back and forth in time, keeps the tone and pace of the movie very lively.

The trial is obviously the center of the story, but the movie’s non-chronological scenes alternate between showing the trial, showing events leading up to the trial, and showing what happened outside of the courtroom during the six months that the trial took place. It’s a lot to cram into a feature-length movie—”The Trial of the Chicago 7″ clocks in at 129 minutes—so some defendants get a lot more screen time and backstories than others. For the most part, the dramatic retelling of this true story works. However, there are a few scenes that were obviously fabricated for the movie, while the movie also leaves out a lot of uncomfortable truths.

“The Trial of the Chicago 7” begins with a brief overview of how the U.S. was affected by the Vietnam War, which was declared by President Lyndon Johnson (a moderate Democrat) in 1965 to save Vietnam from Communism. The Vietnam War escalated into a conflict that American protesters believed was a pointless and expensive war. As thousands of people died in the war, young men in America tried to avoid being drafted into the military. And millions of Americans, especially many of college age, became conscientious war protestors. Vietnam War advocates labeled anti-war protesters as “radicals” and “unpatriotic.”

In 1968, Johnson did not seek re-election. Hubert Humphrey, a former U.S. Senator from Minnesota, became the U.S. presidential nominee for the Democratic Party that year. Humphrey’s conservative Republican opponent was Richard Nixon, a former U.S. vice president under Dwight D. Eisenhower. Nixon would go on to win the presidential election in 1968 and was inaugurated in January 1969.

But before that happened, the Democratic National Convention (DNC) in Chicago in August 1968 became a flashpoint for increasing civil unrest over the Vietnam War and the civil rights movement. Thousands of protestors gathered in Chicago, resulting in violent clashes between law enforcement (Chicago police and the National Guard) and protestors. The riots lasted for two days and ended with 11 people dead, an untold number of people wounded, and thousands of people arrested.

In April 1968, U.S. Congress passed the Rap Brown Law, to make it illegal for people who live outside a community to incite confrontations in a community where they don’t live. It was intended as an anti-riot law, but critics of the law believed its was just the government’s response to people who wanted to organize widespread protests against the Vietnam War and racial injustice. People who advocated for the law believed that it was necessary to help prevent violence during protests.

Johnson and his administration’s U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark decided that there wasn’t enough evidence to federally prosecute anyone for the violence that happened at the 1968 DNC, which ended up being used as an example of how divided America was over the Vietnam War. However, Johnson’s presidential successor Nixon, who ran for U.S. president on a platform to restore “law and order,” had other ideas on how to deal with the chief protestors who were at the 1968 DNC. The Rap Brown Law was about to be enforced, and certain protestors were going to be prosecuted for it.

One of the early scenes in the movie takes place in 1969, in Washington, D.C., by depicting a meeting called by John Mitchell (played by John Doman), the U.S. attorney general appointed by Nixon. In the meeting with Mitchell are attorneys Richard Schultz (played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt), Thomas Foran (played by J.C. MacKenzie) and Howard Ackerman (played by Damien Young), who is a special adviser to Mitchell. Mitchell tells Schultz and Moran that he intends to use the Rap Brown Law to prosecute the leaders of some of the anti-Vietnam War groups who were at the 1968 DNC.

Schultz, who is a very by-the-book young attorney, can’t understand why this prosecution should take place, because Johnson declined to federally prosecute anyone for the 1969 DNC riots because of a lack of evidence. Mitchell essentially says that he doesn’t care, and he agrees with Nixon in wanting to make an example out of these “radical” left-wing leaders. Mitchell also strongly hints that he has a grudge against Clark (played by Michael Keaton), because Mitchell believes that Clark disrespected him in the transition process when the Nixon administration took over from the Johnson administration.

Mitchell decides that Schultz will be the lead prosecutor in the case, with Foran also on the prosecution team. Schultz is very reluctant to take the job because he feels that he doesn’t have enough experience in handling such a big, high-profile case. However, Mitchell insists that Schultz is the best person for the job and convinces Schultz to be the lead prosecutor in the case. It’s not said outright, but viewers can infer that Mitchell chose Schultz because Mitchell probably felt that Schultz’s youth and inexperience would make it easier for the U.S. government to manipulate Schultz.

On March 20, 1969, eight left-wing group leaders were indicted for conspiracy to cross state lines to incite the 1968 DNC riots, among other charges. Their joint trial began in Chicago on September 24, 1969. Presiding over the trial was Judge Julius Hoffman (played by Frank Langella) of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois.

The eight men on trial were:

Tom Hayden, a former president and prominent leader of the activist group Students for a Democratic Society (SDS).
Rennie Davis (played by Alex Sharp), another prominent SDS leader, who is depicted in the movie as Hayden’s best friend.
Abbie Hoffman (played by Baron Cohen), co-founder of the Youth International Party, also known as the Yippies, a group advocating for counterculture politics and lifestyles.
Jerry Rubin (played by Jeremy Strong), co-founder the Youth International Party.
David Dellinger (played by John Carroll Lynch), a prominent member of the National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam (The MOBE), a conference of anti-Vietnam War groups.
John Froines (played by Danny Flaherty), a MOBE member who was eventually acquitted of all charges in the trial.
Lee Weiner (played by Noah Robbins), a MOBE member who was eventually acquitted of all charges in the trial.
Bobby Seale (played by Yayha Abdul-Mateen II), co-founder of the Black Panther Party, an activist group against racial discrimination of black people.

The attorneys for the defendants who are portrayed in the movie are William Kunstler (played by Mark Rylance) and his colleague Leonard Weinglass (played by Ben Shenkman). Kunstler is portrayed as passionate supporter of civil liberties who is fairly even-tempered except when his patience is pushed to the limits. On the prosecution side, Schultz’s courtroom style is more conventional than Kunstler’s style. The supporting lawyers on each side (Foran for the prosecution, Weinglass for the defense) don’t have as much screen time or personality in the movie as the lead attorneys.

And from the beginning, there were problems with Seale being on trial in the first place. He’s depicted as very outspoken in trying to distance himself from the other defendants, by saying that he didn’t even know most of them and certainly didn’t conspire with them. Seale was only in Chicago for four hours to give a speech on one of the days of the 1968 DNC. And in the portions of the trial that are depicted in the movie, Seale vehemently objected on his own behalf because his attorney Charles Garry wasn’t in the courtroom because Garry was in Oakland, California, having surgery.

“The Trial of the Chicago 7” portrays the biggest villain in the courtroom as Judge Hoffman, who doesn’t try to hide his bias against the defendants. The movie also shows that the judge had a racist side in how he treated Seale differently from the other defendants. Judge Hoffman didn’t seem to care that Seale’s attorney wasn’t present during the trial. In a harrowing scene, after Seale was jailed for contempt of court, for angrily talking back to the judge, the Black Panthers leader experienced police brutality from cops who were basically given permission by the judge to do whatever they wanted to Seale to teach him a lesson.

After being physically assaulted by these cops, Seale was paraded back in the courtroom in handcuffs and chains, with a gag on his mouth. Although the white defendants also received several contempt of court citations, they were not physically assaulted and humiliated in the way that Seale was during the trial. The movie depicts several people, including lead attorneys Kunstler and Schultz, being shocked and outraged at how Seale was mistreated, but not doing much about it.

In real life, several of the white defendants were heavily involved in the civil rights movement and fighting against racial discrimination. However, the movie focuses more on the white defendants’ anti-Vietnam War protests as their main activism. Racism is mostly used in the movie as a plot device for Seale’s storyline.

Early on in the trial, Kunstler advises Fred Hampton (played by Kelvin Harrison Jr.), the leader of the Chicago chapter of the Black Panthers, to tell the Black Panthers who are gathered in the courtroom to not sit together. The implication is clear: A bunch of black people sitting together is considered a “threat,” while it’s perfectly okay for white people to sit together. Hampton understands why this request was made, and he tells the Black Panthers in the courtroom to spread out and to take off their hats—not because he wants to be subservient to white racism but because he knows that Seale has a better chance of being acquitted if the Black Panthers in the courtroom aren’t perceived as a “threat.”

And once Seale is out of the picture (a mistrial was declared for Seale on November 6, 1969), the issue of racism also disappears from the movie. Seale’s departure leaves seven remaining defendants, and then the movie really becomes the Abbie Hoffman Show. “The Trial of Chicago 7” makes wisecracking Hoffman out to be the “class clown” who’s also the “hero” of the movie. Hoffman clashes with Hayden outside of the courtroom, so that the movie can show that these seven defendants didn’t have the united front that the public thought they had at the time.

Hoffman’s sarcastic persona is often expressed in how he talks back to the judge. In an early part of the trial, Judge Hoffman announces in court that the record should reflect that he’s not related to Abbie Hoffman. In response, defendant Hoffman shouts out in mock indignation, “Father!”

It’s one of many outbursts that Hoffman makes in the courtroom during the trial. Hoffman also makes fun of the judge when the judge repeatedly and mistakenly uses the name Derringer when referring to defendant Dellinger. Hoffman suggests that the judge remember that Derringer is the brand name of a gun.

While out on bail, the movie shows several scenes of Hoffman on stage in darkly lit places filled with audiences eager to hear what he has to say. The movie frames these scenes as if Hoffman is a stand-up comedian in a nightclub, as he delivers jokes and one-liners about what it’s like to be on trial and what a farce he thinks the trial is. Judge Hoffman is often mentioned in Abbie Hoffman’s rants against the system.

Rubin is portrayed as Hoffman’s loyal sidekick who is effective in a way that calls less attention to himself than Hoffman’s more loudmouthed techniques. However, Hoffman and Rubin’s fiery brand of activism and shenanigans outside the courtroom garner enough media attention that Judge Hoffman wants to sequester the jury. It’s also implied that Hayden resented all the media attention that Hoffman was getting, and that was part of the reason why Hoffman and Hayden clashed so much behind the scenes during the trial.

Although “The Trial of Chicago 7” makes Hoffman the comic relief in the film, the movie also portrays him not as a buffoon but as the savviest one of the defendants. He’s the first one to declare in a meeting with the other defendants, “This is a political trial. It [the outcome] was already decided for us,” while Hayden still wants to believe that the defendants will get a fair trial.

Hayden is less inclined to believe that there are larger political motives behind the trial. “I would love it if the trial wasn’t about us, but I assure you that it is,” he tells a disbelieving Hoffman. Hayden also disagrees with Hoffman’s view that society needs a radical overhaul. During one of their arguments, Hayden yells at Hoffman: “I don’t have time for cultural revolution! I have time for actual revolution!”

Overall, Hayden’s character is portrayed in a less sympathetic light than Hoffman’s character. Hayden is depicted as uptight, somewhat pretentious and someone who isn’t as revolutionary as he claims to be. There are many hints that show that Hayden was using SDS because he had future ambitions to become a mainstream politician. (And if you don’t know what Hayden did with his life after the trial, the movie has an epilogue summary of what happened to all the trial’s main players.)

The most problematic and unrealistic scene in the film is when Hoffman and Rubin, out on bail during the trial, see lead prosecutor Schultz with one of his kids in a park. Hoffman and Rubin call Schultz over for a conversation, which is basically yet another scene to showcase Hoffman being a wiseass. Anyone who knows anything about trials would immediately see that it’s highly unethical and a cause for a mistrial for a prosecutor, while a trial is ongoing, to talk to the trial’s defendants outside of the courtroom without the defendants’ attorneys present.

It’s a scene that’s also out-of-character for Schultz, who made an impression as someone with high standards of playing by the rules, up until this scene. It just doesn’t make sense for prosecutor Schultz to risk having an unethical conversation before the trial is over with two defendants in a public park, of all places, where there would be witnesses who could report seeing this conversation. Not only could this unethical conversation cause a mistrial, but it could also taint Schultz’s career.

And therefore, the only conclusion that viewers can come to when noticing this big legal blunder in the movie is that this scene was concocted as a way to make Hoffman and Rubin have a face-to-face confrontation with one of their trial adversaries outside of the courtroom. It cheapens the movie’s screenplay and it actually insults the intelligence of anyone who knows what the law is when it comes to what U.S. trial participants can and cannot do before the trial is over.

There are also many disruptions during the trial that look exaggerated for the sake of making the movie more dramatic, comedic and tension-filled. There’s a point in the movie where Judge Hoffman loses control of the courtroom in such a way that it looks very fake. Don’t take a drink of alcohol every time Judge Hoffman is seen banging his gavel in frustration because people won’t listen to him, because you might end up with alcohol poisoning.

The costume design and production design for “The Trial of the Chicago 7” are very accurate, but the way the movie is filmed, everything looks like a movie set and everyone looks like an actor playing a role. The riot scenes are filmed in a perfunctory manner, in the way that many other similar Vietnam War-era riot scenes have been filmed in other movies. There’s some real-life news footage spliced in some of the scenes, which will just remind viewers even more how staged the re-enactments are.

And this is very much a “boys’ club” movie, since the few women with significant speaking roles in the film are either playing the role of an office worker, a romantic partner or a “temptress.” Caitlin FitzGerald is the only woman who’s listed as a co-star in the cast ensemble. She plays Agent Daphne O’Connor, an undercover officer who poses as a radical counterculture activist named Debbie, who pretends to show a romantic interest in Rubin so she can get information out of him. Agent O’Connor later testifies for the prosecution in the trial, and the movie makes a big deal out of Rubin being emotionally hurt over being “tricked” by this temptress.

What’s deliberately omitted from “The Trial of the Chicago 7” is any acknowledgment that these so-called “liberal” and “free-thinking” men who were on trial were leaders of organizations that perpetuated a culture of sexism against women. While this movie is busy making Hoffman look like a progressive left-wing hero, it doesn’t show or question why Hoffman couldn’t be bothered to treat women as equals in the activist group that he founded.

Women are certainly seen in the movie’s protest scenes, but they’re only as background extras, along with male protesters. In real life, there were some women who were able to break through sexist barriers and have prominent roles in America’s anti-Vietnam War activism, such as Sandra “Casey” Cason, Judy Gumbo and Robin Morgan, just to name a few of the female contemporaries who at one time or another worked with Hoffman and/or Hayden. But these women, or women who are like them, are completely shut out of the movie.

If you were to believe everything in “The Trial of Chicago 7,” women didn’t come up with any clever ideas or take any leadership roles in organizing these protests or activism in general. It’s a huge blind spot in the movie that erases women’s important contributions to this part of American history and therefore paints a very inaccurate picture. The movie makes it look like men did all the real work behind the scenes, and women just basically answered the phones.

Despite these flaws, “The Trial of the Chicago 7” can be considered entertaining enough because of the performances from the cast members. Baron Cohen is the obvious standout, but Redmayne, Abdul-Mateen and Rylance also turn in memorable and noteworthy performances. But just like the TV series “Law & Order” shouldn’t be considered a completely accurate portrayal of the U.S. criminal justice system, “The Trial of the Chicago 7” shouldn’t be considered a completely accurate depiction of this notorious case.

Netflix released “The Trial of the Chicago 7” in select U.S. cinemas on September 25, 2020. The movie premiered on Netflix on October 16, 2020.

Review: ‘All Day and a Night,’ starring Ashton Sanders, Jeffrey Wright, Regina Taylor, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Isaiah John, Kelly Jenrette and Shakira Ja’Nai Paye

May 1, 2020

by Carla Hay

“All Day and a Night”

Directed by Joe Robert Cole

Culture Representation: Taking place in Oakland, California, the drama “All Day and a Night” has a predominantly African American cast of characters (with some white people) representing the middle-class, lower-class and criminal underworld.

Culture Clash: A young African American man struggles to become a law-abiding citizen, but he falls into the same criminal lifestyles of his father and paternal grandfather.

Culture Audience: “All Day and a Night” will appeal primarily to people who want to see the same negative clichés of African Americans in ghettos that several movies and TV shows have already done.

Ashton Sanders and Shakira Ja’nai Paye in “All Day and a Night” (Photo by Matt Kennedy/Netflix)

If people wonder why so many racists automatically think African American men are violent thugs, a movie like “All Day and a Night” just fuels that racism, because this unoriginal and uninspired movie panders to the worst negative stereotypes of African Americans. The fact that “All Day and a Night” was written and directed by an African American—Joe Robert Cole, who co-wrote “Black Panther” with director Ryan Coogler—doesn’t excuse it or make it better.

There’s a reason why predominantly African American dramas such as “Black Panther,” “Creed” and “Hidden Figures” did so well at the box office, while predominantly African American films about black criminals, such as the modern-day remakes of “Superfly” and “Shaft,” turned out to be flops. (And it’s probably why “All Day and a Night” went straight to Netflix instead of being a theatrical release.)

People are hungry for diverse African American stories that aren’t about the old, tired stereotype of African Americans being “criminals from the ‘hood.” This “criminals from the ‘hood” movie might have been fresh and original back in the early 1990s, with the success of “Boyz N the Hood,” “New Jack City” and “Menace II Society.” But today’s movie audiences are much more aware of the diversity in African American culture and want to see that diversity reflected on screen. Filmmakers can do better in representing that diversity, instead of lazily falling back on racist clichés that have been done already in countless movies and TV shows.

Set in Oakland, California, “All Day and a Night” is a story about a man in his early 20s named Jahkor Abraham Lincoln (played by Ashton Sanders), who comes from a family where generations of the men in the family have ended up in prison. In voiceovers throughout the movie, an adult Jahkor says things like, “By the time my father was 6, his father had been to jail nine times” and “When violence is all around you, you get used to it.”

It’s shown from the beginning of the film that Jahkor is a cold-blooded murderer—he snuck into a home and shot a man and a woman to death in front of their young daughter—and he’s been sentenced to life in prison for the crime. The rest of the film has flashbacks to various points in Jahkor’s life to show how and why he ended up this way.

There’s absolutely nothing unique or interesting about Jahkor to make audiences think that he was a talented and well-meaning kid who had the bad luck to fall through the cracks in an uncaring society. In fact, Jahkor—who is a mediocre aspiring rapper (how cliché)—grew up with the support of a hard-working mother, a loving grandmother and a schoolmate friend who has goals to get out of the ghetto and do something better with his life than becoming a criminal. But the movie clearly shows that Jahkor ignored these positive role models and instead chose the “thug life” of his own free will. Therefore, he (and this movie’s audience) can’t really blame other people for his choices.

“All Day and a Night” star Sanders played the teenage protagonist Chiron in the Oscar-winning 2016 African American drama “Moonlight” in the protagonist’s adolescent years, before Chiron became a drug-dealing gangster nicknamed Black. Just like “Moonlight,” the story in “All Day and a Night” also shows different stages of the protagonist’s life: as a child, a teenager and an adult. The protagonist in both movies also has an abusive, cocaine-addicted parent—in “Moonlight,” it’s the mother; in “All Day and a Night,” it’s the father.

But what made “Moonlight” different, besides the almost poetic way that the movie was made, was that the gangster protagonist turned out to be a sensitive, closeted gay man who’s had a longtime inner struggle about his sexuality. It’s also why “Moonlight” didn’t have the African American ghetto movie cliché of the protagonist being a deadbeat dad with an angry baby mama by the time he’s 22.

And the protagonist in “Moonlight” really had no positive, law-abiding role models in his home: His mother was an abusive crackhead, and the only male role model who was nice to him as a kid was one of the mother’s boyfriends, who was also her drug dealer. “All Day and a Night” is no “Moonlight,” although writer/director Cole obviously wants this cliché-ridden movie to be as widely acclaimed as “Moonlight.” That’s not going to happen.

“All Day and a Night” tells the story in bits and pieces and in flashbacks. As a child in middle school, Jahkor (played by Jalyn Emil Hall) does poorly in academics, and he’s bullied at school. When his father James Daniel Lincoln, also known as JD (played by Jeffrey Wright), finds out that Jahkor has been bullied, his response is to brutally beat Jahkor, tell him that he needs to toughen up, and order Jahkor to beat up the school bully the next time Jakhor sees the bully. Jahkor follows his father’s orders and gets suspended from school.

In Jahkor’s household, Jahkor’s mother Delanda (played by Kelly Jenrette) just stands by passively and does nothing to stop the abuse, since she’s afraid of JD, who’s abusive and threatening to her too. The movie implies that Delanda is one of those women who thinks it’s better to have a man who’s abusive than to have no man at all, even if her child is being abused too. Delanda loves Jahkor and is kind to him, but she doesn’t have the inner strength to get help for the domestic violence, and to keep herself and her child out of harm’s way.

Jahkor’s maternal grandmother Tommetta (played by Regina Taylor), who does not live with the family, is the most positive role model in Jahkor’s life. She encourages Jahkor to follow his dreams and tells him that there are other ways to solve problems than through violence. JD openly scoffs and ridicules Tommetta, by telling her that she’s making Jahkor soft and that she’s too religious. Meanwhile, JD’s life goes on a downward spiral, as he becomes a coke-addicted, drug-dealing murderer, who ends up in the same prison as Jahkor. A scene in the movie also reveals that JD spent some time in a psychiatric institution, which is a part of JD’s background that is stated, but not shown, in the movie.

The movie makes a half-hearted attempt to show that Delanda and her mother tried the best they could to help Jahkor. In a meeting with Jahkor’s middle-school teacher Ms. Ferguson (played by Baily Hopkins), Delanda and her mother seem to be part of the problem, when they react in disbelief at Jahkor’s low grades. Tommetta says that Jahkor is smarter than the grades that he’s been getting, and they say that he just needs someone to believe in him.

There are a few things wrong with the way this movie handles the parent-teacher involvement in Jahkor’s life. First, the movie tries to make it look like the school system failed Jahkor in his education, when in actuality, the mother and the grandmother should bear some of the blame too. These parental figures have an attitude that someone at the school needs to believe in Jahkor, yet the movie doesn’t show how the mother and the grandmother should be those people who believe in Jahkor, instead of making it the government’s problem.

The grandmother, who’s of retirement age, could have had the time to tutor Jahkor in the subjects that she felt she could help him with the most. The mother and the grandmother also could have enrolled Jahkor in free after-school activities, regardless if he was academically gifted or not. They live in Oakland (not a deprived rural area), and a big city like Oakland has a lot of free resources for underprivileged youth.

These are the pro-active things that parents do when they don’t rely on schools to teach their children things like morality, respect and a good work ethic. And you don’t have to be economically privileged to have these kinds of values. But, of course, that doesn’t fit the movie’s narrative that a kid like Jahkor is “doomed” to repeat the criminal activities of his father and other men in his family. It’s truly offensive how this movie portrays most African American men as criminals and most African American women as passive followers who just go along with what the (criminal) men in their lives want.

As for Jahkor’s peer group, his closest friends include “bad boy” TQ (played by Kaleb Alexander Roberts as a child, and Isaiah John as an adult) and “good boy” Lamark (played by Ramone Hamilton as a child, and Christopher Meyer as an adult). Lamark is the aforementioned friend who has ambitions to not be a negative ghetto stereotype. Lamark comes from a stable, loving, two-parent household with a younger sister. Lamark’s family ends up being somewhat of a surrogate family to Jahkor.

Jahkor utters this line in one of the movie’s voiceovers: “Outside the ‘hood, people think every family is messed-up like mine. Lots of people take care of business, and if they ain’t you, you put your faith in them.” The irony of this statement is that this entire movie is about the “messed-up African American family” stereotype, so it just reinforces the negative images that “people outside the ‘hood” have of African Americans who are “from the ‘hood.”

Lamark ends up volunteering for the U.S. Army, where he comes home wounded from the war in Afghanistan. As a result of his war wounds, Lamark becomes a paraplegic. Jahkor becomes bitter that his friend “who did everything right” and served the U.S. government as a loyal soldier ended up in this tragic situation. It’s an excuse for this movie to show why Jahkor turned to a life of crime.

About a year before the murders, a flashback shows that Jahkor had started dating a young woman close to his age named Shantaye (played by Shakira Ja’nai Paye). She ends up doing the most cliché thing that African American women do in ghetto movies like this one: She gets pregnant while not being married to the baby’s father, who doesn’t have a steady job.

When she tells Jahkor about the pregnancy, he’s elated, but they don’t seem too concerned about how they’re going to pay to raise this child, which is yet another racist stereotype that implies that they’re going to live off of government welfare. What Shantaye does for money isn’t really made clear in this movie, because this film obviously doesn’t to want to show African American women as educated career women.

By the time Jahkor finds out that he’s going to become a father, he has a criminal record that includes armed robbery, resisting arrest and home invasion. These arrests are not shown in the movie, but the information is stated after he’s brought to the police station in another scene in the movie when Jahkor is questioned about another crime. “All Day and a Night” is not told in chronological order, so viewers have to keep up with all the random flashbacks.

Because he’s a convicted felon, Jahkor has trouble finding a real job. He gets more motivated to make an honest living after finding out that he’s going to be a father. So, he calls in a favor to a straight-laced friend, and lands a job as a sales clerk at an athletic shoe store, because the person who previously had the position had suddenly quit. In one scene, a white woman goes in the store and sees Jahkor moving some shoe boxes, and she suspiciously asks him what he’s doing, because she thinks he’s a thief. Jahkor tells her that he works there, but she backs out of the store apprehensively and leaves.

In a voiceover, Jahkor says racist incidents like this are like little cuts that add up to big emotional wounds. However, it’s hard to feel too sorry for Jahkor, because although the white woman’s reaction to him was very racist, his own violent criminal record proves that he’s not a harmless angel. And whose fault is it that he chose to be a criminal? Movies like “All Day and a Night” certainly reinforce the negative stereotype that most black men are criminals, and that’s a stereotype that causes a lot of damaging racism.

“All Day and a Night” seems to want to ignore the reality that people who choose to openly live a “thug life” shouldn’t be too surprised when people stereotype them as criminals. If this racist incident depicted in the movie had happened to a black person without a violent criminal record (and racist incidents like this do happen to law-abiding black people in real life), then maybe more sympathy would be deserved.

And “All Day and a Night” certainly can’t blame Jahkor’s destructive lifestyle on white racism (even though the movie seems to want to put the blame there), because there is nothing but black-on-black violence in the film. But the movie wants people to feel sorry for Jahkor, when his choices and actions in life show that he’s his own worst enemy. It’s not other people’s fault that he turned out to be such a loser.

There are other things that show that Jahkor is a selfish jerk, such as how he mistreats and degrades Shantaye about something she did in her past before she met him. Jahkor also has a disturbingly violent reaction after he meets his mother’s new boyfriend Ray Ray (played by John Que), who was nice enough to bail Jahkor out of jail without even knowing Jahkor. The movie hints that Jahkor might have inherited the mental illness his father has, but at the very least, Jahkor has serious anger management issues. His violent abusiveness is supposed to make him look “tough,” but it just makes him look hateful.

It comes as no surprise that Jahkor ends up quitting his job at the shoe store and becomes more involved with his friend TQ’s criminal activities. At first, Jahkor swears that he won’t get involved in drug dealing, but he changes his mind when he wants to impress the hotshot drug dealer in the ‘hood named Big Stunna (played by Yahya Abdul-Mateen II), who hires Jahkor to be his bodyguard/enforcer. Even though Jahkor is not muscular, he has a quick temper and has a reputation for being a vicious fighter. Big Stunna has a female sidekick named La-Trice (played by Rolanda D. Bell), who essentially does what all the African American women in this movie do: Let the men dominate and then react to whatever the men want.

The rest of the movie shows why Jahkor committed the murders (he volunteered to do it) and there’s somewhat of a twist toward the end that reveals someone’s ulterior motive for the crime. There are some prison scenes where JD tries to give Jahkor advice on how to survive in the prison. And there’s also an almost laughable scene where Jahkor and JD are in the prison yard, and Jahkor tries to bond with JD by getting his father to do some gardening in the yard with him. It’s completely unrealistic that this prison would allow a convicted murderer like Jahkor to have a sharp instrument like a gardening tool in the middle of a prison yard.

Needless to say, there’s a lot of violence in “A Day and a Night” and constant use of the “n” word and other cursing. All of the actors, except for Wright, are relatively unknown to mainstream audiences, so it’s easy to see why they jumped at the chance to work on a movie that was written and directed by someone who co-wrote the mega-successful “Black Panther.” Wright is an excellent actor, but this was clearly a “paycheck” movie for him, since there’s no depth at all to the JD character, who’s a typical abusive thug. Abdul-Mateen’s career is on the rise (he has the role of Black Mantis in DC Comics movies), but so far, he’s mostly known for playing villainous characters in movies.

And the racist stereotyping isn’t just for the black people in the movie. The few white people who are in the film have small speaking roles, and they are portrayed in unflattering ways. There’s the racist store customer who’s afraid of dealing with Jahkor. There’s the young teacher who thinks she’s being a “white savior” by teaching in a predominantly African American school. There’s the young co-worker at the shoe store who talks like she’s a wannabe street gangster, but she really lives in an affluent white neighborhood. And there’s the overzealous cop who resents that Jahkor and TQ were driving in that white neighborhood. (Jahkor and TQ were in the neighborhood because it was Jahkor’s idea to follow that co-worker to her home. Very creepy.)

Aside from being annoyingly derivative, the biggest problem with “All Day and a Night” is that the movie doesn’t even have a protagonist that people will root for in a big way. The movie tries to make Jakhor sympathetic, when he’s in prison and cries on the phone about how he doesn’t want his son to see him in prison. Well, it’s a little too late for that, since Jahkor has a life sentence, and he volunteered to commit the murders when he knew that he was going to be a father.

There’s a flashback scene that takes place after Jahkor committed the murders, when he suddenly shows up at Shantaye’s home, looking anxious with the two guns he used in the crime. Jahkor won’t tell a suspicious and pregnant Shantaye what he did and why he has those guns, but he asks her to keep the guns. He also takes the cash that he was paid for the crime and hides it in Shantaye’s couch, presumably for Shantay to find later and to use as child-support money. But it’s blood money, so using it for child-support payments really doesn’t show any redemption on Jahkor’s part, and it definitely doesn’t justify the ruthless way that he gunned down two people in front of their child.

You have to wonder why these mediocre-to-awful African American gangster movies, which are usually financed by an all-white or predominantly white team of producers, keep getting made, when there are so many more interesting and original stories about African Americans that can be told. Oscar-winning filmmaker Spike Lee, who is widely considered to be the most influential African American filmmaker of all time, is respected by other filmmakers because he doesn’t make the same type of movie over and over. The African American protagonists in his movies usually aren’t criminals, just like most African Americans in real life aren’t criminals. Lee is an example of an African American filmmaker who understands that there is more to realistic African American stories than just depicting the main characters as criminals.

If you want to see a better and more accurate representation of modern African American culture in a Netflix drama that was released around the same time as “All Day and a Night,” check out the far superior and more original “Uncorked,” which is about a young, law-abiding African American man who aspires to be a master sommelier.

“All Day and a Night” would have been a more interesting film if it had made Lamark the protagonist, since it’s rare to have a movie that shows an African American war veteran as the lead character. (Spike Lee has done it with “Da 5 Bloods.”) “All Day and a Night” is writer/director Cole’s second movie as a director, so maybe his next movies that he writes and directs will show that he can come up with more original ideas and less degrading stories than this one.

Netflix premiered “All Day and a Night” on May 1, 2020.