[Review] Judas And The Black Messiah (6.5/10)

 

Title - Judas And The Black Messiah
Studio - Warner Bros. Pictures, MACRO, BRON
Starring - Daniel Kaluuya, LaKeith Stanfield, Dominique Fishback, Jesse Plemons, Ashton Sanders, Darrell Britt-Gibson, Algee Smith, Dominique Thorne, Martin Sheen
Writer - Will Berson, Shaka King, Kenneth Lucas, Keith Lucas
Director - Shaka King
Release - 12 February 2021

How is there not a bigger uproar for this movie when both Daniel Kaluuya and LaKeith Stanfield were both nominated for Best Supporting Actor? How are they "supporting" when the whole movie rested on both their shoulders? This is a slap on both their faces. If you want to put Kaluuya as supporting, so that he has a bigger chance of winning, at least put Stanfield in the lead. 

But if you want to count the number of words spoken by an actor, Kaluuya clearly had more. So much more that maybe even more than all the other actors in the Best Supporting category combined. 

Nevertheless, both deserved to be nominated for whatever acting category they are in, as both gave performances that I have never seen them do before. To be honest, I'm more impressed with Kaluuya just because his thick British accent was taken over by this thick version of an American one, though I would need subtitles to fully catch every word he uttered.

While the plot and most of the scenes drew you in, but every time it was the characters of Kaluuya and Dominique Fishback together, I automatically tuned off. Something here in these characters' relationship just did not interest me and I couldn't care for them.

The second act also could not held my interest. At some points, it got too slow that I didn't bother to keep track of where the story was heading. Instead, scenes with Jesse Plemons and Martin Sheen were more interesting than the two leads when they were apart.

But the performances of Kaluuya and Stanfield definitely made you root for them. Whether they were in their highs or lows, your heart would go out to their characters. Other than that, everything else was actually not that memorable.