A Battle for Two Souls.

Kaleidoscope's newest is on Warner Bros., Bron Creative's, & Participant Media's production of "Judas and the Black Messiah".  Directed & co-written by Shaka King, the movie stars Daniel Kaluuya, LaKeith Stanfield, Jesse Plemons, Dominique Fishback, & Martin Sheen.  Rated 'R', it has a running time of 2 hr., 6 min.

The prologue details how 17-year old petty thief William "Bill' O'Neal (Stanfield), after being arrested for car theft while posing as a federal agent, is approached by FBI Special Agent Agent Roy Miller (Plemons) & is offered a plea deal: the theft charges will be dropped in exchange for O'Neal going undercover & infiltrating the Illinois chapter of the Black Panther Party & getting 'in tight' with the Party's leader, Fred Hampton (Kaluuya).   After infiltrating, O'Neal does, indeed, grow close with Hampton.  Hampton begins to fulfill the movie's title as he strives to form alliances with rival gangs & militia groups; these actions result in the formation of the first multiracial Rainbow Coalition aligning with the mostly white Young Patriots Organization and the mostly Latino Young Lords.  Additionally, he expands the Black Panther Party's community outreach Free Breakfast for Children program.  While Hampton is organizing all of this, he falls in love with Deborah Johnson (Fishback).  Soon, O'Neal begins to supply Miller with intel from the Party, & Miller compensates O'Neal with ever larger sums of money.  Act I closes as a raid occurs at Party headquarters, from intel supplied by another informant, & Hampton is arrested & imprisoned.  During his absence, O'Neal rises in stature in the Party & is named Security Captain.

King has directed his film with an intense fervor that translates well on the screen.  He intersperses stock footage of interviews with O'Neal & Hampton's son, Fred Jr. at key points in the movie.  Even tho the film's running time is just over 2 hours, the pacing is crisp & precise thus making the time seem shorter.  King's & Will Berson's screenplay captures the rhythm's of the vernacular of the time which adds to a great sense of verisimilitude.  The one flaw, albeit a minor one, is that the film's POV is O'Neal's; it probably would have been even more effective to have had it from Hampton which would have given him more screen time.  The acting is excellent throughout.  Kaluuya shines as Hampton.  He alternates, with equal effectiveness, between the hard-nosed prophet of the Panther movement seeking, with varying degrees of success, to create a true Rainbow Coalition and the more tender & sensitive Hampton when he is with Johnson, especially when she becomes pregnant.  Stanfield, who, along with Kaluuya, both had their breakout roles in 2017's "Get Out, is superb as he convincingly depicts a man who begins as a two-bit hustler & thief & grows into a leader of the BPP.  He also is persuasive as a man torn between enjoying the power & accompanying FBI confidential informant dollars and the people & the movement he is betraying, all in pursuit of the former.  Plemons is very good as a man who experiences an arc similar to O'Neal's:  while he is loyal to Hoover & the FBI, he grows increasingly uncomfortable with the duplicity & the frank racism of Hoover's tactics.  Fishback is quietly effective in her arc transforming her from a young, innocent girl who becomes enthralled & eventually falls in love with Hampton.  Sheen, buried under a load of makeup, never really rises above a caricaturist depiction of Hoover--altho, on 2nd thought, that might have been a realistic one.  Craig Harris's & Mark Isham's score well complements the varying emotional & action shades of  the film.  Sean Bobbit's cinematography, while effectual most of the time, does occasionally succumb to Zack Snyder-itis, making the scenes too dark.  

I give "Judas and the Black Messiah" 8 1/2 out of 10 nuggets.  It is a rich biographical film that resonates with the injustices of the civil rights movement of the 60's & 70's that has much relevancy to the current times.  If you have HBOMax, you have 31 days from its release on Feb. 12th to see it; it is also in the theaters that are open.  Check it out!!