Black and Blue (2019)

Sometimes, a simple story is good.  Stick to one thing and do it well.  Other times, not so much.  A simple story might not be able to support a grand idea.  Take Black and Blue.  The movie centers on Alicia West.  She’s new to the New Orleans police force and is still maybe a little naïve.  (She has no problem wearing a body camera.)

The story starts when her partner, Kevin, is called to pull a double shift.  He needs the night off to be with his family, so Alicia agrees to cover.  She’s sent out with Deacon Brown, an officer who does have a problem with body cameras.  During their shift together, Deacon and Alicia stop by an abandoned warehouse.

Alicia is told to stay in the police car.  Even if you hadn’t seen the coming attractions, you know what happens next.  She has to get out of the car and wanders into the warehouse, only to witness a murder.  The rest of the movie is Alicia trying to get back to the precinct to upload the video on her body camera.  It turns out that the shooter was another police officer.  Alicia is framed for the shooting and has to find support among a community that isn’t very accepting of police officers.

Black and Blue was directed by Deon Taylor, who also directed The Intruder.  I find I had the same problem with both movies:  They were a little too simple.  I found that I was watching a movie that was taking too long.  The script, such as it is, can’t support the 1:48 running time.

This isn’t to say it should have been shorter.  It’s just that the movie came off as a little repetitive at points.  We constantly see that the people won’t help her, but we’re not shown why beyond one line of dialogue.  The police don’t go out to that area because it’s so far gone.  That’s not really explored in the movie.

Instead, it’s all about Alicia being hunted down by the police and not being accepted by the community.  (In a cliché move, she can’t even trust her partner.)  She’s on the run and has no reasonable expectation of finding a place to hide.  She’s not fully a police officer and she’s not really a member of the community.

There aren’t a lot of surprises.  It’s almost like a paint-by-numbers movie in its predictability.  If you’ve seen the trailers, you can probably predict how the movie will unfold.

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Breakthrough (2019)

There’s a scene, early in the movie, where we see a Christian band performing.  Rather than keep it brief, it goes on just a little too long.  All I could think was that it was time to move on to the next thing.  This proved to be a pretty good analogy for the rest of the movie.  Everything about it is just a little too much.

The movie is based on a book, which was an account of a true story.  The book was written by Joyce Smith about her son, John, who fell into a frozen lake and was pronounced dead.  He makes a full recovery because of Joyce’s faith in the Christian God.  There are a few scenes where this is done subtly.  Tommy Shine, a paramedic trying to get John out of the water, hears a voice that he initially assumes to be his boss’s.  When his boss denies it, it must be God.

Many scenes are more blunt.  When Joyce is allowed to see John’s body, she starts praying.  Right when she asks for His help, John’s heart starts beating.  Coincidence?  It’s probably not that simple.  Between the fact that John’s mother wrote the book and the fact that Hollywood is known to embellish a little, I would think that there’s more to the story.

I would come down harder on Joyce except that the movie does well in portraying her as a mother in grief.  I get that she’s dealing with the possible loss of her son.  My issue is that religion is the only mechanism that she has to deal with that stress.

When Joyce overhears doctors talking about the reality of John’s condition, she forbids any such talk in his room.  When friends and neighbors are gathered in the waiting room Joyce overhears someone telling their daughter that John’s might not make it.  Again, she forbids any negativity.  (Fortunately, Brian calls her on this.)  Instead of religion being a powerful force, it could easily be seen as a crutch.  It’s like that saying: If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

Consider something called survivorship bias.  Dr. Garrett indicates that he’s never seen someone that far gone come back.  How many of those other patients had family members and friends praying for them?  Maybe we’re to believe that Joyce is just better at it.  It’s because of her sheer willpower that God let John live.

One might say that this was all a way to let Joyce shine and show her faith.  She gets to tell everyone that God will take care of it.  Maybe it was to show her to tone it down a bit.  She is at odds with a lot of people, including the pastor.  It’s easier for me to believe that it was all random.  To put that much stock in faith undercuts the work that medical professionals do.  John is lucky to be alive and to have parents that love him.  I just don’t think that God was ever part of it.

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Extinction (2018)

I remember learning that Netflix doesn’t necessarily produce its original movies.  The company may buy the rights at some point during or after production.  This is good for movies that might not otherwise make it to a screen.  This can be bad for viewers who don’t always get the best movies out there.  It ends up padding Netflix’s offerings with mediocre movies.  Take Extinction.  The movie was going to be released in theaters.  When distribution fell through, Netflix stepped in.

The movie takes place at some point in Earth’s future.  No date is shown, but technology has advanced considerably.  Peter and Alice are two normal parents.  Peter works at a factory and Alice has some sort of public-works job.  Their kids seem like normal children.  They even live in a nice apartment building.

Peter and Alice have just finished hosting a party.  Suddenly, attacks come from above.  No mention is made of a foreign nation and the ships are unfamiliar, so it must be aliens.    One guest from the party remains, so the adults find their kids and try to think of a way to safety.  The factory where Peter works is a safe place, but it’s ten blocks away.  Alice knows enough about the sewer system to get them there.  Along the way, they have to fight off the aliens.

Yes, we do get the big reveal.  We find out who the invaders are and what they want.  I found it wasn’t really enough to support a feature-length film.  It’s the kind of thing that would be better suited for a Twilight Zone episode.  Unfortunately, we don’t really get enough suspense (or anything else, for that matter) to support the movie.

I felt like it was a very minimal effort.  Peter and Alice had just enough of a history to make it so that the story could move along.  We don’t even know exactly what they do.  We just know that Peter does something technical in a place that could provide shelter and that whatever Alice does means that she can get them there.  Even having children seemed to be a way of giving them something to protect.

A lot of things seemed cliché about the movie.  The main group has to make it down the side of a building on one of those window-washing perches.  Seriously, though:  Has that ever worked?  I don’t think I’ve ever seen a movie where no one was in danger of falling off.

At the risk of sounding cliché, myself, the movie looks like it could set up a series or at least a sequel.  It’s like a pilot episode that had additional material put it to bring it up to 95 minutes.  I think maybe a sequel was planned, but I’m not counting on it ever being produced.  I think maybe Universal had the right idea in not distributing it.


IMDb pageBen Young