whetstonefires:

This is a Good Film. It is not ‘Taraji P. Henson doing a good job in a mediocre film.’ (For one thing the whole cast did great.) The reviews are bogus and it is a scandal how underpromoted this movie is. Watch it!

Thing is, and I let the critics off slightly for this but am still judging them, it’s…not really an action film. As such. It has like three action scenes, and they’re appropriately improbable and very nicely done and not at all sexy, except in the same way anybody killing a lot of people quite competently can be.

I was led to expect Atomic Blonde with a black lead. This is not that.

There are a lot of plot elements familiar from the action genre and ultimately I would say it counts as one, especially as the fast pace is driven by threat of a mob war, but like 90% of this film is a psychological drama about guilt, trust, found family, the logistical consequences of solving your problems with violence, and crime as a trap that takes the kids no one is protecting, and won’t ever let them leave.

(Incidentally, there are five white people with speaking parts in this movie: three mobsters two of whom are killed by Mary, a shop girl, and a drug addict who provides plot-critical information.)

It’s character-driven, it’s intensely sincere, there are several scenes with hella subtext about power as a function of demographics. By Hollywood standards, it’s remarkably realistic. Everyone is very human and that hurts because it excuses nothing. It’s a power fantasy about freedom that could not have been told in this way about anybody but a black woman.

I have seen the ‘assassin who orphaned kid takes them in’ trope done so many times, and I have never believed in it even half this much. It’s not the absolute pinnacle of cinema, but it shouldn’t have to be. It’s a good movie.