Blindspotting is many things, but the fact that it accomplishes so much in its brief 90 minutes of screen time is nothing short of revelatory.
The film, co-written by co-stars (and lifelong friends) Daveed Diggs and Rafael Casal, is a blistering indictment and a nuanced portrait of what it means to be alive at this critical juncture in today’s fast-evolving world.
Yes, its primary focus is a vibrant character study of African-American life in a city (Oakland, California) that’s experiencing a seismic upheaval of its storied demographic, but the reverberations touch everyone, regardless of skin color or ethnicity, including Hispanic, Asian and white residents.
At its core, it’s a chilling parable about current events, specifically the seemingly never-ending spate of excessive deadly force with which white cops murder minority residents, and the responsibility that young black men feel to stand in protest, whether through words or retaliatory violence.
But Diggs and Casal refuse to stop there.
Blindspotting is also a hip-hop meditation on love, friendship and gentrification, told through the eyes of two longtime residents trying to make sense of a strange new world that continues to encroach in surprising ways on what was once sacred territory.
Collin’s best friend, Miles (Casal), also serves as a constant reminder of the uneasy bridge between Oakland’s activist past and its Whole Foods future.
Carlos López Estrada, marking his feature-length directorial debut, uses a slew of images from across Oakland to drive home his point. The opening-credits sequence is a tour-de-force mash-up of past and current that perfectly depicts the paradox happening today in northern California without ignoring the positive beauty and overall improvements that can result.
If this all sounds like a history lesson tucked inside an interminable city council meeting packed with protestors trying to outshout the architects of change, have no fear.
Blindspotting is that rare accomplishment that deftly blends education, enlightenment and entertainment, and it succeeds by never losing focus of the two men stuck standing in the middle of a community maelstrom.
Collin (Diggs) is three days away from being off probation following incarceration for a nightclub fight that went spectacularly bad. He’s been living in a halfway house under a strict curfew for way too long. As a result of the fight, his girlfriend Val (Janina Gavankar) broke up with him, but he still sees her every day as she schedules jobs at the moving company where he works.
Collin is constantly bombarded with reminders of his skin color and the fact that he is now an ex-con. Diggs’s ability to draw viewers in, often with just a subtle facial expression, is remarkable. Also amazing, but not surprising, given the Grammy and the Tony he won for his dual roles in Hamilton, is how he often articulates his thoughts in staccato bursts of rhyme.
Collin’s best friend, Miles (Casal), also serves as a constant reminder of the uneasy bridge between Oakland’s activist past and its Whole Foods future. Miles is the living embodiment of a white male raised in an urban environment. He sports a gold grill in his mouth, speaks in perpetual slang and is prone to confrontation following even the slightest perceived disrespect.
You immediately understand Collin and Miles’s dynamic, the depth of their friendship and the loyalty that exists, in part, because Miles is often very funny. At one point, he tells an art gallery owner (Wayne Knight) that he and Collin have “like a Calvin and Hobbes thing going on.” Even better is a scene in which Collin eyes a high-priced healthy juice drink, which prompts Miles to berate a bodega owner for selling such products.
This is as much a love letter to the Bay city as it is a memorial service for the culture that’s been lost.
“What is this, the blood of fucking Jesus?” he demands to know. “What is in it that costs $10?”
There’s a darkness to Miles too, as he is consumed by guilt, given that he played a large role in the fight that brought Collin to his current predicament.
Two central plotlines form the foundation of Blindspotting. One involves Collin driving back to the halfway house, trying not to break curfew, when he watches in horror as a white police officer (Ethan Embry) guns down a young black man in the middle of a thoroughfare.
The other focuses on Miles’s purchase of a handgun from a local drug dealer and arms dealer, who also works as the neighborhood Uber driver. That gun becomes a central device in two pivotal scenes, one that takes place during an extra-granola hipster party at the home of a Pandora Internet Radio executive and another set during the film’s explosive and emotional climax.
Throughout Blindspotting, Diggs and Casal keep returning to Oakland’s roots, both literally and figuratively. This is as much a love letter to the Bay city as it is a memorial service for the culture that’s been lost.
Even the film’s title is perfectly explained during a quiet conversation between Collin and Val about visual perception, and how people often can look at something and focus on a small detail while failing to see the whole picture.
Diggs and Casal see the whole, and they see the most intimate details as well. By sharing what they see happening in their world, they have created a timely masterpiece that will stand as a benchmark for generations, regardless of where its audience lives.
John W. Allman has spent more than 25 years as a professional journalist and writer, but he’s loved movies his entire life. Good movies, awful movies, movies that are so gloriously bad you can’t help but champion them. Since 2009, he has cultivated a review column and now a website dedicated to the genre films that often get overlooked and interviews with cult cinema favorites like George A. Romero, Bruce Campbell and Dee Wallace. Contact him at bloodviolenceandbabes.com,on Facebook or on Twitter.
This article appears in Jul 26 – Aug 2, 2018.
