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Producers: Tonya Lewis Lee, Nikki Silver, Aaron L. production, in association with Red Crown Prods., Charlevoix Entertainment, Creative Wealth Media. Running time: 98 MIN.Ī Netflix release and presentation of a Bron Studios, Tonik Prods., Get Lifted Film Co. (In Sundance Film Festival 2018.) MPAA Rating: R. ‘Monster’ Review: An Involving Portrait of a Young Black Man Accused of Murder
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One that encourages audiences to reckon with a complexity - to slay the “monsters” the culture so easily creates. “Luce” (2019), “Waves” (2020) and “Monster” - which was made first but arrives only now - make a powerful triptych. The characters may represent a Venn diagram of Black male experiences, but he locates the uniqueness in each. In the past three years, he’s appeared in three very different dramas that seem to speak to each other. Harrison has a compelling, gently magnetic screen presence. The scene is a surprising ode to what could have been. When King sits Steve down one evening and describes the subtle goings-on across the street, his observations are a thing of acute - even lyrical - awareness. In a sense, King, Bobo and Steve offer their own shades of gray. (Jharrel Jerome, the Emmy-winning actor from “When They See Us” rounds out the alleged robbers.) As Bobo, John David Washington has never looked more dangerous.
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It was he who introduced Steve to Bobo (who’s already copped a plea as the trial gets underway). King is also a bad actor - and not in the thespian sense. One of the most vivid (and achy) scenes in “Monster” comes while Steve shoots video of King playing chess, getting his braids combed out, and jawing with an old-timer at the same time. If King so casually, confidently called you “beloved” the way he does Steve, you too might find yourself in hot water. Rap artist A$AP Rocky portrays King with a charismatic ease. Steve had become his visual chronicler of sorts. Part of the reason we wonder whether Steve might be culpable is that, unlike anyone in the movie, we know he developed a bond with James King, a neighborhood gangster, who is being tried at the same time. Even as he tries to be strong and supportive, he looks shell-shocked by the turn of events, his own thoughts turning in on themselves, asking “how did this happen?” His jailhouse moment proves quietly crushing. A jailhouse reunion between mother and child finds her apologizing for not having taken him to church. Jennifer Hudson seems slightly squandered here as Steve’s mom. Was he in any way involved? “Monster” keeps viewers asking, even as it gives us glimpses of Black professional-class life we see on television (with shows like “Blackish”) but not nearly as often in movies. “Monster” doesn’t let us lose sight of that fact, even as we pull for Steve. After all, a man was killed during a robbery gone bad.
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All that stands between him and a long sentence is the work of his public defender, played by Jennifer Ehle, and as she looks for loopholes, Steve wonders about identity: Is he teen or monster, son or monster, brother or…? “Monster” extends these quandaries to viewers. Steve contemplates his place in a world in which a life of possibility can be so quickly upended. What are they watching? Akira Kurosawa’s classic, “Rashomon.”įirst-time feature director Anthony Mandler (along with cinematographer David Devlin and editor Joe Klotz) plies skills honed working in advertising and crafting music videos to create a visually kinetic film that is as much about seeing as it is about being seen, about agency and the racial myopia of American justice. In flashback, he and his high school friends riff with their film club instructor (a sympathetic Tim Blake Nelson) on story and the moving image, aesthetics and point of view. He also relates his experiences in screenplay form. “Monster” is cerebral and emotionally warm without being sentimental. In flashback, we see the life he was living in a changing Harlem with his younger brother, a girlfriend (their low-key banter sweetly spot-on) and his loving parents. Steve - already in jail awaiting trial - ruminates on his predicament, ponders his own meaning and tries not to give into fears that the nonstop noise and omnipresent menace of prison will be his future.