American Son (Netflix)

I’ll admit I was sucked in by Kerry Washington and the intriguing interactions her character, Kendra, was having with both the police officer and her “husband” in the trailer. My thinking was they didn’t want to give too much away in the trailer and if I watched the film itself would give more in the final product.

Boy was I wrong!

Now, the acting wasn’t bad and, as much as I can determine, the purpose of the movie was to ignite a conversation centered around police brutality and black men in America. Conversations that definitely need to occur in the homes of black families, especially those with black boys, but this after tragedy strikes representation of cops killing black men isn’t the best representation of how to effectively have this conversation with your kids… because now it’s too late.

Let me back up real quick… Here’s your spoiler warning. If you haven’t seen this yet and you still want to watch it without being told the story before hand… you should still read this and save yourself a hour and half of endless dialogue in one horribly lit location for the entire movie.

American Son is supposed to be a movie about an 18-year old young black man, Jamal, that has gone missing and his mother, Kendra (Kerry Washington), is at the police precinct looking for aid and assistance in finding him. She finds herself in a never-ending and ridiculously unhelpful game of word tennis with a low-level officer, Paul Larkin (Jeremy Jordan - Supergirl), who is clearly uninterested in helping this black woman find her son and has pegged him as a gang banger simply off the fact that his mother is black. He stands behind his inability to share any information with her until the AM Lieutenant arrives to provide any information available to the family.

Kendra waits for her husband, whom she is separated from, to arrive . Upon his introduction into the scene Kendra has gone to the restroom and Officer Larkin immediately assumes he is the Lieutenant he’s been awaiting because he’s a white man. OOPS… actually this white man is married to the black woman you were just talking shit about and called ghetto. Talk about messy…

Honestly, I was more irritated with the situation because he didn’t even wait for confirmation of who this man was before he started mouthing off about Kendra and the case that he clearly had information on but wasn’t “authorized” to share without supervision. If you’re really about the rules and upholding justice for everyone, even black kids, you shouldn’t be so loose lipped because you assume a white man that walks in the room should automatically be granted access to information you possess for no other reason than because he is a white man and has on a badge.

Well, if you’re waiting on something more to come out of this movie… THAT’S IT! We watch Kendra argue with her husband about why they’re not together and about why Jamal is going through an identity crisis as a mixed black boy with a white father that has left him high and dry and honestly never would have been able to teach him how to live as a black man anyway. We also watch her go back and forth with Officer Larkin when she realizes he' gave information to the husband that he wouldn’t give to her. The lieutenant eventually shows up, has the husband arrested because he doesn’t seem to want to respect his authority, and eventually tells them that their son was incidentally shot in the head and died on impact when the officer was actually aiming at one of his friends that was running away trying to evade arrest.

BOOM!

So all of this dialogue they were hoping would give them the opportunity to address their son’s behavior is null and void now because he’s not coming home.

An hour and 30 minutes…. in a room with windows and couches, that we’re told is a police station, but we can’t really verify that… we never even see Jamal’s face… watching this interracial marital couple go at each other about their downfall as parents and the terrors of raising a black boy in America today… and then experience the devastation of hearing their son was killed hours before because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong people.

Don’t get me wrong definitely a sad story, but personally I think it was a horrible depiction of the reality we as black people live everyday. A plausible conversation starter, however. My friend just kept repeating “that wasn’t a movie” after it ended, LOL. Honestly, as the “movie” progressed that’s what he kept repeating while checking how much time was left and wondering if we were ever going to see what Jamal looked like.

This was definitely more of a play in my eyes with the stagnant set and heavy dialogue and it didn’t translate into cinematic gold as much as I would have liked it to. Nothing wrong with plays… I love them! I just think it would be better received if that fact is provided in the description or at the beginning of the piece. My suggestions of better movie depictions on this battle that black men fight everyday and have fought everyday for centuries include “The Hate U Give” and “Fruitvale Station”.

Overall, I don’t really suggest wasting your time watching this movie… but think about how you can address these pressing issues with your black children to make sure they know how to make it back home to your family at night. Knowing your rights is fine, but also know difference of when they need to fight for those rights and when they need to make it to the next day to be alive to fight for those rights.

Be D.O.P.E.

Movie Release: November 1, 2019 (initial release September 12, 2019)
Where I watched: Netflix