Director and co-writer Shaka King’s “Judas and the Black Messiah” is an explosive, rightly revisionist account of Bill O’Neal’s (LaKeith Stanfield) FBI backed infiltration into Black Panther Party and his role in the devastating demise of Chairman Fred Hampton (played by the looming and powerful Daniel Kaluuya).
“Judas” suitably arrives in early 2021, which maintains the unmistakable stench of 2020. It’s a film for our time, portraying the extent of then FBI director J. Edgar Hoover’s COINTELPRO (counter-intelligence programming) used to torpedo the Black Panther Party. Martin Sheen’s Hoover implores his G-Men that the FBI must do whatever it takes to prevent a ‘black messiah’ rising from the ranks of one of these activist groups. As a result, it hits hard and resonates like a rediscovered trauma.
Bill O’Neal’s first moments in “Judas” find him arriving in Chicago in the late 1960s attempting a carjacking by impersonating a federal agent. When he’s apprehended, FBI Agent Roy Mitchell (Jesse Plemons) gives him an ultimatum, do significant time or go undercover for the G-Men. Writers King and Will Berson demystify the Panther operations, aspirations and community connections. They also illuminate the vile and virulent tradecraft used by the FBI to disrupt at all moral costs.
Director Shaka King clutches his largest cinematic canvas to date and delivers a vibrantly composed, richly textured, potently performed, biographical drama. The fabrics have weight, colour and sheen, the locations feel lived in, and the performers are unafraid.
Even thinking about how damned good Stanfield is as O’Neal makes me want to hoot and holler. Stanfield is pulsating, constantly adrenalised, masking a sustained creep with bold decisions; his crew eventually giving him the nickname ‘Wild Bill’. When he’s out of the Panthers’ prying eyes and is faced with his masters like Agent Roy Mitchell, the film shows the ambivalence of his sense of self-preservation – utterly casual about the transactional nature of the relationship without any consideration of the impact.
Plemons is growing into one of the most exciting performers of his generation and continues to be a master technician of his craft. His work is so deft that in a scene (that I won’t spoil) when he re-emerges in O’Neal’s life to re-open dialogue and increase manipulation, he exhibits control and intensity that just floored me.
It’s almost unfathomable that the real Fred Hampton was only 21 years of age when G-Men snatched his life away. Kaluuya infuses Hampton with the swagger of an undefeated prizefighter. No matter the hostility of the situation, the way that his fellow Panther/Coalition comrades balk at increasingly hairy situations that they find themselves in, Kaluuya walks across the coals like he’s impervious to heat. He’s unshakable.
Kaluuya’s unrelenting stares, wielded with malevolence in “Widows”, are charged with defiant compassion here. He imbues his Hampton with an aura that he will find your humanity and that together you can overcome the direst circumstances and the worst odds.
Dominique Fishback’s Deborah Johnson is a fellow Panther and partner for Hampton. She provides insight and cuts through the persona of the man who damned near makes people, even five decades later, want to respond to his call. The pair share deeply intimate and contained moments and she asks the tough questions. Whilst Hampton is fatalistic in a near messianic way, she brings the hyperbole back to reality. Are you going to be alive long enough for us to be together? Are you going to be alive long enough to be a parent?
It’s hard to determine what it is about portraying/playing J. Edgar Hoover that inspires filmmakers and actors alike to seek out the shroud of prosthetics. For Martin Sheen, those prosthetics also serve as a chilling death mask. The way Sheen’s Hoover uses this facade of amorality, manipulation, and power-hungry torment makes you forget about the actor underneath. Instead, the perversion and grotesque soul of Hoover has altered his very appearance. King dances the camera around possible lengthy close-ups, capturing precisely what is required, before feeling the way his menacing presence impacts those around him like Plemons’ Agent Mitchell.
There’s a scene towards the end of “Judas” that so perfectly encapsulates the mood, the conflict, and the landscape of Bill O’Neal’s life. King takes O’Neal (Stanfield) to a bar, lit with a glacial white/blue hue – a cold light of day for his anonymous encounter with an attractive woman; it seems safe to assume she’s a lady of the night. The bar’s lighting is staged so that as she sidles up besides O’Neal, she’s bathed in an inviting red, draped by the inference of passion. The exchange invites embellishment, fake cordiality to mask the transaction that’s about to happen.
O’Neal, at that moment, says that he’s a Federal Agent, an effort to impress that echoing his introduction that so nakedly rides the line of the truth of his deception. This choice leads to a misunderstanding and eventual intervention by a figure who may as well be the woman’s pimp (I will refrain from spoiling the finer details). Outside the bar, as O’Neal realises the extent that he’s in over his head, King stages Stanfield in the light from a green neon sign. Stanfield’s O’Neal is shaken to his core, the pallor of nausea matches his motivations – money is the only morality.
“Judas” concludes with an excerpt from a documentary called “Eyes on the Prize”, which featured O’Neal confessing to his part in Fred Hampton’s death. In the documentary, he describes his feelings about his role and surmises (and I’m paraphrasing) that he hopes that his son/the public will see his side. Institutions under scrutiny have made corruption, bribery and manipulation a vital mechanism of their survival. Bill, like Judas, had a choice. To quote “The Insider” – fame lasts fifteen minutes, infamy lasts a whole lot longer.
