Red, White and Blue (Steve McQueen, 2020)

Neither as baldly declarative as Mangrove, nor as poetically open-form as Lovers Rock, Red, White and Blue splits the difference, resulting in the strongest mainstream film released thus far from Steve McQueen's five-part "Small Axe" project. While Oscar prognosticators are much more likely to zero in on the conventional courtroom drama of Mangrove, as well as that film's literal black-and-white moral stridency, RWB is a thornier work of art, and is all the richer for it.

In its form as well as its subject, RWB is a study in the tension between figure and ground. While it struggles to exist as a work of individual portraiture, the social and political environment of racism continually asserts itself, preventing its subject from ever being the autonomous subject he longs to be. Leroy Logan (John Boyega) has a PhD in research science with a specialty in forensics. But somehow, he feels that this is an inadequate challenge, and that working in a lab he is not doing enough to help his local community. So he decides to go to the Academy and become a cop.

This is the early 1980s, and the racist attitudes that had been stoked in the 70s by the likes of Enoch Powell are reemerging with Thatcher's rise, only with an institutional veneer that allows such behaviors to hide behind procedure and policy. In the police force, as we see Leroy distinguish himself, we witness both institutional tokenism -- prohibiting him from doing the work he wanted to do -- as well as overt racism from his rank-and-file colleagues. But both forms of systemic abuse are well protected behind plausible deniability.

Meanwhile, as Leroy's fellow cops treat his as a pariah, his own family and community regard him as a traitor. While it is certainly refreshing to see a film in which becoming a police officer is regarded as the most revolting decision an adult can make, we understand Leroy's no-win situation. His father Kenneth (Steve Toussaint) in particular considers Leroy's choice a betrayal. He has had his own history with police harassment, but he has always demanded that his family maintain self-respect in the face of racist bullies. Now, he sees his son signing up to join them.

To its credit, Red, White and Blue does not offer solutions to Leroy's problem. We see him struggling to maintain his dignity within the force, but McQueen is also careful to show that the problem is much larger than Leroy's. His desire to be an emissary for his race and his community may be noble and necessary, but he is unprepared for the schism involved when one decides to move from person to representative. He wants to be seen for himself, which is exactly what the institution, as he finds it, is incapable of doing. If change has to come from inside the machine, as liberals so often believe, it's important to remember that there's going to be blood on the gears.