Stream it:
|
Own it:
|
With: Michael Boatman, Lori Petty, Ice Cube, Erich Anderson, Richard Anderson, Bernie Casey, Victoria Dillard, Elliott Gould, Don Harvey, Tommy Hicks, Michael Ironside, Wanda De Jesus, M. Emmet Walsh
|
Written by: Charles Burnett, John Eddie Johnson, Ned Welsh
|
Directed by: Charles Burnett
|
MPAA Rating: PG-13 for intense dramatic material
|
Running Time: 109
|
|
Date: 06/02/1995
|
|
|
|
Police Flawed
By Jeffrey M. Anderson
The great, unsung Black filmmaker Charles Burnett should have finally achieved a measure of fame with this, via the hot distributor Miramax, but instead his work was edited and softened, and subsequently released without much publicity or attention. The released film doesn't rank with Burnett's best, but it's still very much worth seeing, a sober, complex portrait of institutional racism, directed with intelligence and power. Michael Boatman stars as Deputy J.J. Johnson, an eager young Black rookie in an all-white precinct. He befriends the only woman in the precinct, Deputy Deborah Fields (Lori Petty); they're both outsiders. Trouble comes when a Black man (Ice Cube) is arrested for a murder based on shoddy evidence; J.J. is torn between doing what's right and supporting his fellow officers, whom he's eager to please. The stellar cast also includes Bernie Casey, Elliott Gould, M. Emmet Walsh, Michael Ironside, Wanda De Jesus, and Victoria Dillard. The advertising materials featured Cube and Petty prominently, as if they were the main characters, but they never even meet onscreen.
|
