This film is devoted to a particularly bloody chapter in the history of the Black Panthers in the United States. Fred Hampton, young and charismatic leader of the movement in Illinois, was assassinated in Chicago on December 4, 1969. It was the FBI which took charge, without further ado, of the operation, within the framework of the Cointelpro program, secretly developed by Edgar Hoover, intended to destabilize radical protest movements, which were not lacking at the time. The recourse to systematized assassination will however particularly target the black and Indian movements.
Hampton’s was made easier by the presence of a mole among his bodyguards. It is in the course of this man, a little thug named William O’Neal, that the story is interested, from his recruitment until the death of Hampton. This allows the director to paint at the same time a picture of the latter’s action, showing how he manages to federate other radicalized ethnic groups in Chicago, as well as gangs that will form the famous “rainbow coalition”. sky ”. Thus giving to understand the danger represented by this charismatic man in the eyes of the FBI.
In defense of African-American destiny
At a time when white supremacism is experiencing a worrying revival and when the assassinations of black men continue to be perpetrated by the police of this country, it is certain that this kind of films is of obvious interest, if only for ‘by showing the continuity of the history of racism in the United States and the practices to which it gives rise. It is clear that Hollywood today embraces the fight of visible minorities. The number of films devoted to the defense and to the illustration of the Afro-American destiny has considerably increased there, these gaining in quality.
The story is smooth as an oilcloth, the plot looped in advance, the characters devoid of depth, the monolithic interpretation
Beyond the condensation effect of the discreetly conservative blockbuster Black Panther, by Ryan Coogler, works as brilliant and explosive as Moonlight (2016), by Barry Jenkins, Get out (2017), by Jordan Peele or Sorry to Bother You (2018), by Boots Riley, were born. Hell being, as everyone knows, paved with good intentions, the moment was to be foreseen when this movement of defense and illustration of black destiny in the United States would generate its own caricature. This moment comes with Judas and the Black Messiah, whose title itself is not a model of going beyond clichés.
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