Wednesday 1 August 2018

Film Review: "Blindspotting" (2018).


"Change The Way You See" with Blindspotting. This comedy-drama film directed by Carlos López Estrada, and written by Daveed Diggs and Rafael Casal. Collin must make it through his final three days of probation for a chance at a new beginning in his Oakland, Calif., neighborhood. His bond with his volatile best friend soon gets tested when Collin sees a police officer shoot a suspect in the back during a chase through the streets. Things soon come to a head when the buddies attend a party at the upscale home of a young and wealthy tech entrepreneur.

The screenplay was written by Rafael Casal and Daveed Diggs over a period of nine years. Daveed, who grew up in Oakland, and Rafael, who grew up in bordering Berkeley, California, felt that cinematic portrayals of the San Francisco Bay Area have constantly "missed something". They wanted to draw attention to the culture, community, and sense of "heightened reality" that shape life in Oakland. The film addresses issues of gentrification, police violence, and racism. Diggs and Casal said about 90% of the film is a result of the first draft, with various rewrites done as filming took place to update it to reflect modern times. Due to Diggs being constantly busy performing in Hamilton, the pair had to delay the film for an extended period of time. By June 2017, Janina Gavankar, Jasmine Cephas Jones, Ethan Embry, Tisha Campbell-Martin, Utkarsh Ambudkar, Wayne Knight, and Leland Orser rounded out the film's cast. At the same time, principal photography commenced, and lasted for twenty-two days. Filming took place in Oakland, California.

The film stars Diggs, Casal, Gavankar, Jones, Embry, Campbell-Martin, Ambudkar, Knight, and Orser. Diggs and Casal come over as hard-boiled city guys, total cynics with a world-view of sublime simplicity, and that all fits perfectly with the film's other parts. There's even room, in the midst of the emotional drama, for a surprising amount of grace, humor, and whimsy.

The film is, by any objective standard, a messy wreck. That this is so does not in anyway change that it is an absolutely wonderful movie. The humor is predicated on underplaying in overscaled situations, which is sporadically funny in a Keaton-esque way but soon sputters out through sheer, uninspired repetition. The story is thin, but there's a consistently wonderful over-the-top mentality. It's many excesses just make this brilliant slapstick musical even more enjoyable. The film is a big, loud, often obnoxious, but surprisingly sweet-tempered. There's even room, in the midst of the carnage and mayhem, for a surprising amount of grace, humor, and whimsy. At times, the film is formless, chaotic and lazy, and quite brilliant because of it. The film can be an undisciplined, overlong tale that substitutes spectacle or a coherent narrative. This short and underdeveloped comedy-drama has an energy and individuality lacking in similar films nowadays. The film retains a huge contemporary kick, thanks in large part to Digg and Casal's easy rapport, a smattering of daft, shaggy humour and some truly emotionally dramatic moments.

Simon says Blindspotting receives:


No comments:

Post a Comment