Black and Blue (2019)

The idea behind Black and Blue is a good one. But Black and Blue is an example of when all there is is an idea. Once the film gets going, it is clumsy and awkward, managing to waste and good momentum it starts to gain by falling flat again and again.

This is the story of a good cop, a black cop, who is torn between her community and her job, a cop who comes across bad cops and struggles to find anyone she can trust. There is so much to be explored here but the film's idea of exploration is rather surface and obvious. So often I found myself wondering what a more nuanced and complex approach could have yielded with such a story. 

Characters articulate plot, motive, and characterization instead of letting us glean all of that from their actions.  In fact they don't say much of anything else. Everything seems to be explained to the audience to make sure we are getting the point. When the film starts to move into its action sequences, they build up great tension only to have it dissipate through a jump cut to what often feels like non-sequitur. For example a number of times, our hero will be hiding, about to be discovered by her pursuers, only to have it revealed without any explanation that she is not there and she managed to get away. It sucks the tension right out of the scene and an action movie needs that excitement to sustain it.

Also everything is telegraphed miles ahead. You see everything coming. No twist is left for a surprise in what turned out to be one of the most predicable movies of the year.

And it's all to bad because the idea of the move this could have been is truly compelling.

Black and Blue
Staring: Naomi Harris, Tyrese Gibson, Frank Grillo, Mike Colter, Reid Scott, Nafessa Williams
Director: Deon Taylor
Writer: Peter A Dowling