Black and Blue – Budget Unknown – 1 hour and 48 minutes

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Afghan Vet, Alicia West has been on the police force for 3 weeks.  When she’s out of uniform, she is harassed by the police.  When she’s in uniform, she is harassed by the locals.  Her old neighborhood is run by Darius and his Kingston Crew.  Alicia’s partner Kevin Garrison tells her they don’t go in Kingston unless a police officer is in trouble.  He believes Kingston is lost.  Alicia sees something different.  She knows there are some bad people.  However, she knows there are some good people in bad situations. They are just trying to find a way out.  After a routine patrol, Alicia and Garrison are ready to go home but their chief tells Garrison it’s his turn to work overtime.  Alicia knows he has plans with his wife, so she takes his double shift.  She is told to partner herself with Officer Brown.  During the night patrol, Brown saves Alicia’s life.  He tells her she can’t consider herself black anymore.  She is blue.  The people in her old neighborhood don’t care about her anymore.   The next morning Officer Brown goes to meet with a CI and tells Alicia to wait.  She takes time to charge her dead phone and hears several gunshots.  She goes inside the building to find 2 men dead on the ground.  Brown, Malone, and another NARC are talking to a CI named Zero.  Zero is begging for his life and promises to keep his mouth shut.  Malone shots him point-blank, multiple times. Brown spots Alicia and starts to question her. Before she can respond the NARC shots her several times and she falls through a hole. Malone saw her body cam and begs her to stop running. He tells her he only wants the camera. She decides that he should go to jail. Murder is murder.  She wants to get back to the precinct to upload the footage. Alicia doesn’t know that Malone has told the captain she went rogue and killed all 3 men. Darius comes on the scene and wants to know what happened to his nephew Zero. Malone tells Darius that Alicia shot Zero. Alicia has to make it to a precinct full of armed, dirty cops through a neighborhood full of hired, heavily-armed hitmen. Good thing she has a Mouse on her side.

Talk about a thrill ride. This movie uses the current political climate without being as preachy as The Hate U Give because it uses the quick wit of John Wick 3: Parabellum. Every character is flawed in one way or another. Alicia is a good guy.  However, her idealism for the future allows her to let her guard down at the wrong time. She wants to talk things through and get to know people. She is making herself an easy target in a neighborhood that doesn’t remember her. This movie does touch on the reality of profiling and police brutality.  For the everyday viewer, it’s easy to miss two huge issues the movie is trying to address.  First, the lack of current technology. These officers must place their cameras into the precinct’s docking station to load the footage. If there was a wireless connection to the cloud, this movie would not exist.  Second, good cops holding bad cops accountable.  When Alicia saw something was wrong, she didn’t back down.  She wants everyone held to the same standard.

I give it 4 out of 5 stars

Nice speech. I’ll make sure they put it on your headstone – Mouse

You brought her, you shot her, and now I have to clean this s**t up – Malone

Yeah, I know how it is – Alicia

Malone, put your dog on a leash before I put him down – Darius

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