REVIEW: ‘Judas and the Black Messiah’ Starring Daniel Kaluuya, Lakeith Stanfield, and Dominique Fishback Is Timely Cinematic Perfection of 1960’s Chicago and the Black Panther Party

Warner Bros. is set to release Judas and the Black Messiah in theaters and on HBO Max, February 12, after it premiered tonight at the Sundance Film Festival. (spoilers)

The film stars heavy hitters Daniel Kaluuya and LaKeith Stanfield (Get Out), Jesse Plemons, and Dominique Fishback; it’s simply a round table of Oscar-worthy performances and cinematic perfection.

Judas and the Black Messiah follows FBI informant William O’Neal (LaKeith Stanfield) as he infiltrates the Illinois Black Panther Party and is on a mission to take down Chicago leader, Chairman Fred Hampton (Daniel Kaluuya). O’Neal is juxtaposed between his paranoid-filled days as a plant where all eyes are on his every move, to the secret meetings with Special Agent Roy Mitchell (Jesse Plemons). Mitchell has offered him a deal that involves cash payouts and a chance to stay out of prison for his petty crimes.

If you are hesitant about British-born actor Daniel Kaluuya’s portrayal of Hampton, you will breathe not just a sigh of relief at his spell-bounding performance; but will be awestruck at his physical, verbal and emotional transformation into the American Civil Rights leader. You will see his dedication, research, and respect for this character’s story. Daniel captures the dialect of Hampton perfectly, catapulting you into 1960’s Chicago.

Writer and director Shaka King will lure you in from start to finish, like diving into the depths of the ocean with an apprehensive serenity juxtaposed with anticipated terror. It’s the calm before the storm, leaving you laser-focused on each character’s movements, sounds, and visuals, with you not wanting to blink and miss any aspect of each tantalizing scene.

The performances, direction, cinematography, music, and wardrobe tell a complete and beyond-satisfying story that leaves viewers feeling that the film did history justice as the piece attempts to rewrite some of the false narratives and untold stories of the Black Panther Movement.

Cinematographer Sean Bobbitt who has worked on such films as 12 Years a Slave, Hunger, and Shame, accurately recreated the period in shades of black and green. There is an eloquent flow that captured the ‘high alert’ movement of the Black Panther Party’s day-to-day life, serving its community and dodging adversaries and forming alliances.

Daniel Kaluuya is brilliant from his tone, mannerism, and heftier appearance from previous roles. We see his character dive and ultimately drowning in resistance, white allyship, and his plight for Black power while combating police brutality and domestic terrorism. LaKeith Stanfield’s portrayal of O’Neal will leave you having to shake off his outstanding performance and display of his character’s disturbing and lamentable actions.

Dominique Fishback (Deborah Johnson), playing Hampton’s love interest, and Dominque Thorne (Judy Harmon) give powerful performances assuring that Judas and the Black Messiah includes the brave female voices critical to the Black Panther Party. You feel every tear; you feel the raw pain, the loss, the terror, like white noise.

Fishback does a tremendous job at showing the emotional sacrifice that so many Black women make and have made, putting their self-care on hold for the urgency of their race’s survival. She gives powerful emotion as we watch her character fall in love with Hampton. She shows Johnson’s strength in having to watch him not only lead but watch the FBI track his daily life, falsely arrest him, only to ultimately murder him while unconscious by the police, right before her eyes and all while pregnant with his child. Fishback is celebrated for her poetry, and it was amazing to see that reflected in the film in her journal, which her character shares with Hampton, and makes for genuinely touching Black love scenes we rarely get to see on screen.

There is a strong theme of Black love in many shapes and forms, from Kaluuya and Fishback’s dynamic relationship to the themes of brotherhood and love of people.  Judas and the Black Messiah peels back the layers of misinformation and government betrayal that has haunted the Black Panther Party and Black Americans.

Thorne’s character is one of strength as we see her play this militant, structured, and devoted character who wasn’t entirely falling for O’Neal’s stories. Her scenes where she confronts him over his past life as a car thief to her powerful shoot out with the police during a raid on their headquarters shows Thorne’s dynamic talent as an actress.

Judas is a timely film that could not have come at a better moment in history, with the world coming off the heels of the global BLM movement combating police brutality and the most recent American climate of sedition, a coup, and the inaction of the Capitol Police in D.C.

Stream it on HBO Max or catch it in theaters on February 12.