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Feb 12, 2021 · In “Judas and the Black Messiah,” Daniel Kaluuya gives an electrifying performance that raises the hairs on the back of your neck. As Fred Hampton, the murdered chairman of the Illinois Black Panther Party, Kaluuya is riveting as he prowls the stage inspiring his audiences.
Director Shaka King's JUDAS AND THE BLACK MESSIAH offers an in-depth, humanizing look at the Black Panthers' Chicago branch, its leader Fred Hampton (Daniel Kaluuya), and petty thief-turned-informant William O'Neal (LaKeith Stanfield).
- Shaka King
- Monique Jones
- Warner Bros.
Feb 12, 2021 · Judas and the Black Messiah tells the story of Black Panther Party leader Fred Hampton (Daniel Kaluuya), who was killed by the police in a 1969 raid.
Feb 11, 2021 · ‘Judas and the Black Messiah’ Review: I Was a Panther for the F.B.I. In Shaka King’s historical drama, Daniel Kaluuya plays the radical leader Fred Hampton, with Lakeith Stanfield as the...
- Shaka King
- A.O. Scott
- 126 min
- The saga of Black Panther leader Fred Hampton and his betrayer.
- 2021 Movies Preview
- Verdict
By Siddhant Adlakha
Updated: Nov 3, 2022 8:13 pm
Posted: Feb 2, 2021 8:15 pm
This is an advance review of Judas and the Black Messiah, which premiered at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival and will debut in theaters and on HBO Max on February 12. Our reviewer watched the movie via a digital screener. Read more on IGN's policy on movie reviews in light of COVID-19 here.
A film whose very title evokes reverence and betrayal, Judas and the Black Messiah is a powerful political drama about Illinois Black Panther leader Fred Hampton and FBI informant William O’Neal, who provided the layout to Hampton’s apartment for the police raid in which he was murdered. It paints a stark political picture of the late 1960s, unapologetically deifying (though never dehumanizing) the revolutionary Hampton, while simultaneously following O’Neal down a rabbit hole of increasing paranoia lest he be found out.
The film’s performances are undoubtedly its strongest suit, reuniting Get Out co-stars Daniel Kaluuya as Hampton and Lakeith Stanfield as O’Neal. If it stumbles, it only does so in service of balancing two character-centric stories at once, each as human and emotionally charged as its counterpart. They seldom intersect in any manner other than plot mechanics — Hampton and O’Neal frequently interact, though without much resembling an actual relationship — but what each story has to say about the other holds enough thematic heft to make the film shine, despite its occasional dramatic disconnects.
Hampton’s half of the film follows him in and out of prison, and from speech to speech and activist enterprise to activist enterprise. It does little to drive the larger plot — the film is framed mostly by what intelligence O’Neal is able to gather and relay to Mitchell — but this focus on Hampton’s ideals foregrounds what might otherwise be a mere political backdrop (a la Hampton’s presence in The Trial of the Chicago 7). By contrasting Hampton’s political presence with O’Neal’s activities, and switching seamlessly between them, the film injects immediate tension into O’Neal’s dilemma about following through with the FBI and putting Hampton & co. in danger.
Between Hampton, his lover Deborah Johnson (Dominique Fishback), and other Panther comrades like Jimmy Palmer (Ashton Sanders), Jake Winters (Algee Smith), and a particularly electric Judy Harmon (Ironheart's Dominique Thorne), the film builds an engaging ensemble. Each character feels like a complete presence, and each performance makes an impact, filling every corner of the frame with life, passion, and camaraderie. The result is an almost infectious commitment to the Panthers’ cause. From a historical standpoint, the film acts as corrective, flying in the face of common narratives like Mitchell’s, which label them terrorists and such. From a dramatic standpoint, the allure of the Panthers — who come off equally cool and compassionate — makes O’Neal’s half of the story, and his impending betrayal, all the more difficult to stomach. What’s at stake isn’t just the Panthers’ safety, but the progress they’ve built; O’Neal doesn’t so much betray Hampton as he betrays the cause itself.
Stanfield is downright revelatory as O’Neal, a man fighting to stay centered as he becomes absorbed in the movement, all the while armed with the knowledge that he’s a fraud, and his presence puts the Panthers in danger. In the rare moments where O’Neal’s story is questioned by his comrades, Stanfield’s equilibrium shifts wildly between calm reserve and punishing anxiety; watching him lie results in some of the most painfully honest Hollywood cinema in recent memory.
However, despite frequently returning to O’Neal, the film does falter when it comes to dramatizing how much he actually does or doesn’t believe in the cause, or how this belief changes or strengthens the deeper his deception gets. In real life, O’Neal was a man who either believed (or used as a justification) his own contributions to Civil Rights, a contradiction the film even includes through real interview footage and references by other characters. But this contradiction doesn’t seem to factor into the way O’Neal is dramatized — which is a shame, because as great as Stanfield is at wrestling with dishonesty, seeing him wrestle with an emerging and difficult truth might have tipped the film over from pretty great into truly masterful territory.
The insecurities of informant Bill O’Neal (Lakeith Stanfield) make for an uneasy platform, upon which director Shaka King places the weighty presence of Panther leader Fred Hampton (Daniel Kaluuya), who delivers fiery speeches on par with Hollywood’s most powerful orations. Driven by its performances, and smuggling revolutionary politics into “awar...
- Siddhant Adlakha
Feb 12, 2021 · “Judas and the Black Messiah” recounts a fascinating fact-based story in somewhat disjointed way, as it oscillates between two key characters.
Feb 1, 2021 · Jan. 28, 2021. One brutal but mercifully undepicted episode — the torture and murder of Alex Rackley, a New York Panther suspected of being a police informant — raises the stakes...
