Blindspotting

— What a pleasant surprise this film was. I missed it in theaters but luckily watched it on DVD. Instead of being just another Oakland-based story about the black experience, this one sets itself aside by shifting from a fairly humorous story about a black man with three days left on his probation, who is trying to keep on the right side of the law, to something more complicated when he witnesses a black man shot in the street, leaving the viewer a little off-kilter as the film keeps touching on relevant issues. Essentially a buddy-film with a fondness for hip-hop, there are a lot of forces at play: identity, class conflict, gentrification, profiling, violence, helplessness, loyalty, and anger. In the end, the strength of the direction, acting, and script makes a cultural and political problem many of us only experience on the periphery, a deeply personal experience, giving us a better sense of what it means to be white or black in today’s America.

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[2018. 95 min. Directed by Carlos Lopez Estrada. Starring Daveed Diggs, Rafael Casal, and Janina Gavankar.]
https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/blindspotting-2018