Review: Blindspotting

by Andrew Parker

Energetic, poignant, and socially conscious, the slice-of-life comedy-drama Blindspotting touches on a lot of common themes present in urban-set films today, but does so in often brilliantly original ways. While this Oakland set tale of a young black man’s struggle to get to the end of his probation mentally and physically in one piece will invariably garner comparisons to the also Oakland based, but vastly more experimental Sorry to Bother You, Blindspotting firmly carves out a name for itself by conveying similar viewpoints through different tactics. The two films would make for an exceptional double feature, and while both are ragged and choppy in their own ways, neither are less socially valid, pointed, or worthy of being heard and understood.

Collin (Daveed Diggs) is nervously waiting to finish his probation, stemming from a prison stint brought on by an altercation outside a bar. With three days left until he’s a “free” man, Collin wants to keep his head down and his nose clean, living at a halfway house and working as a mover. While Collin has been doing a great job of walking the straight and narrow, his white best friend, Miles (Rafael Casal), isn’t making things easier. Buying a gun so he can look cool and hard in the face of hipsters that are overrunning his rapidly gentrifying neighbourhood, Miles is a loose cannon (and an unlikely family man) that’s primed to explode at any moment. Collin’s co-worker and ex-girlfriend, Val (Janina Gavankar) is constantly warning that Miles will likely get them into trouble, but the young man’s loyalty to his childhood bestie is unflappable. Collin’s delicate legal status is further put to the test after he witnesses a white cop (Ethan Embry) shooting a fleeing, unarmed black man one night on his way home. Shaken and haunted by the incident he witnessed and compounded by Miles’ increasingly hard-headed behaviour, Collin’s final days of probation will be filled with white-knuckled anxiety and paranoia.

Blindspotting, much like Sorry to Bother You, feels every bit like a well intentioned debut feature that has more on its mind than it could ever hope to contain in a single film. Gentrification, the flawed state of the American judicial system, racism within urban police departments, interracial relationships, and the fickle nature of human perception are line items that could sustain their own film, but are all integrated well enough together here.

It’s the first feature effort from director Carlos López Estrada, and the first major cinematic work from stars and co-writers Diggs and Casal. Blindspotting definitely seems more like a showcase for Diggs and Casal’s skill sets than it does for Estrada, with the music video veteran proving more of a hired gun to keep everything narratively and emotionally on track. It’s the kind of film that’s refreshingly more driven by the passion of the actors and the screenwriters rather than an auteur, but it’s also a film that can’t fully shake the inexperience of the core creative types, no matter how engaging, socially relevant, or emotionally intelligent their material might be.

Diggs and Casal have found a nice balance of humour and tragedy with their material, leading to an intense viewing experience that shifts nicely between lighthearted observations about everyday life in a big city to harrowing life-or-death encounters that escalate swiftly. As writers and performers, Diggs and Casal aren’t afraid of big emotions, sight gags, running in-jokes between characters, or audience provocation; traits that serve them well as both scribes and actors. Outside of some inspired match-cutting between scenes that helps to forward the narrative, Lopez doesn’t have much to do here outside of pointing and shooting the action. The film belongs almost entirely to Diggs, Casal, and the tone they’re seeking to create.

Diggs and Casal – who are also close friends off screen, making their on camera chemistry even more effortless – have stage, spoken word, and rap backgrounds. Blindspotting isn’t afraid to lean heavily into their previous professional and personal experiences. Sometimes, in the case of a dream sequence where Collin imagines he’s on trial and Miles is the prosecutor, the film’s forays into spoken-word territory are enthralling. Often, Diggs and Casal seem like they’re raising their voices so the people in the back of the theatre can hear them without ambiguity, which works in the confines of a legit theatre, and sometimes less so in a cinema.

This theatrical style sometimes distracts, particularly during the film’s passionately delivered, but distancing climax. Abandoning the flashes of realism that made everything else leading up to the conclusion so exhilarating, Blindspotting throws a lot of believability to the wind in favour of a somewhat indulgent performance piece. Every word that’s being expressed in the final moments of Blindspotting comes directly from the heart and soul of the people who made it, but the staging suddenly becomes artificial and inorganic. It’s almost as if Diggs and Casal’s comfort zone works against them here. It’s work that’s more suited to earning a chorus of snaps in a club than gasps in a movie theatre.

The best moments of Blindspotting have a relaxed, lived in quality, and often feature Collin and Miles just being their normal, flawed selves while increasing the tension between them, and their loved ones by extension. One fears that Collin will either break down under the weight of fear or become a victim of his circumstances. He’s a likable person who made a terrible mistake, and the way the film frames people’s incorrect perceptions about him is nothing short of revelatory. Collin is in a desperate state throughout, but flashes of dark humour abound and illuminate, particularly during a sequence where a witness to Collin’s crime recounts the not-so-funny events as the most hilarious thing he’d ever seen. Miles’ constant consternation with increasingly affluent locals tinkering with his previously sketchy hood nicely strikes a balance between social satire and occasional flashes of menace. In showing characters that are products of their environment and to depicting how the world is changing around them, Blindspotting excels at crafting interlocking anecdotal moments packed to bursting with subtle truths, and stumbles somewhat when it comes to grander social soapboxing.

But even in the bits that don’t work, Blindspotting refreshingly takes huge risks in telling its increasingly suspenseful and serious story. It’s a work that’s unafraid to put its heart and mind firmly on the line, another comparison that could be made to musician turned filmmaker Boots Riley’s debut feature, Sorry to Bother You. But while Riley is more interested in looking at loftier, more revolutionary issues from a number of dizzying, experimental perspectives, Diggs and Casal want to focus on more personal, intimate themes. Both films are relevant and poignant in their own specific ways, but Blindspotting – in spite of its spoken word outbursts and performative flourishes – is more focused on the here and now, rather than the theoretical future. It’s a timely story worth telling and an uncompromised vision of being young, black, and afraid in an ever changing world that’s growing equally hostile and homogenized. It’s a film that gets by on common sense, thoughtfulness, and sheer passion, and the kind of story that audiences have been lacking for quite some time.

Blindspotting opens at Cineplex Yonge and Dundas in Toronto, Cineplex Forum in Montreal, and International Village in Vancouver on Friday, July 27, 2018. It begins expanding to additional Canadian cities on Friday, August 3 and continues expanding in the coming weeks.

Check out the trailer for Blindspotting:

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