True Stories 52: 20s—Judas and the Black Messiah

Judas and the Black Messiah [2021] with a story by Will Berson, Shaka King, Kenneth Lucas & Keith Lucas, and a screenplay by Will Berson and Shaka King, told a riveting story and was probably my favorite film of 2021. But despite it being, in my mind, a masterpiece, people didn’t go to see it.

The film had a sensible—even low by these days in Hollywood—budget of $26 million, but made less than $8 million worldwide. The critical praise for the film was almost universal, it was nominated—and won—many major film awards, so why didn’t people go to see it?

This is always a difficult question to answer. The history of Hollywood is littered with films that people didn’t go to see when they were released but later became classics. It’s a Wonderful Life was a bomb when it came out. It was so uninteresting to its studio that they failed to renew its copyright! This is one reason you see it so much around the holidays—it’s cheap for networks to show it! But when we watch it today, it’s just perfection. You’d be hard-pressed to find someone who doesn’t like this film. And the film that often tops best-films-of-all-times lists, Citizen Kane, was also a bomb when it was released.

So one likes to believe that quality will eventually win out. But I don’t think you can count on it.

Judas and the Black Messiah tells the story of Fred Hampton, the leader of the Black Panthers in the late 60s and William O’Neal who became the FBI informant who brought Hampton down, resulting in Hampton’s death at 21. Take a look at the trailer for the film: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sSjtGqRXQ9Y

The trailer gives you an entrée into a film about revolution and social unrest—it goes for the action, if you will, to draw audiences into the film. But none of that is what stood out for me in the film. The essence of this film was getting to the heart of understanding Fred Hampton who, at 21, was a charismatic leader with high principles who believed in justice and fair play—something he and most people of his race were not getting in 60s America.

Watch this film. See if you’re not drawn into Fred’s character, Fred’s world. I’m not saying that the trajectory of the film was wrong—I think focusing on the 'Judas' character of William O’Neil and seeing what drove him was also interesting—but I think a mistake was made in promoting the film. Because the trailer gives us the impression that we’re going to see a film full of yelling all the time, and the film was SO much more than that. It portrayed someone who, had he lived, could have changed the world.

Next week we’ll look at a film about a man who changed the world of musical theatre in tick, tick… BOOM!

Copyright © Diane Lake

11Jun23

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