Sundance winner Fruitvale Station will be released in limited theaters this week by the Weinstein Company. While it won’t be the biggest film of the week, it may be the most emotionally riveting.
The movie chronicles the last day of Oscar Grant’s life. Grant was a 22-year-old Black man from the Bay Area who was shot in the back by a police officer while in custody on New Year’s Eve in 2009.
The incident was captured on a cellphone video that went viral, leading to a national outcry for justice.
But how good is this docudrama, which features emerging star Michael B. Jordan as Grant? The reviews are out,and based on what the critics are saying, Fruitvale Station is a must-see this weekend.
Stephanie Zacharek (The Village Voice) – “Coogler dramatizes Oscar’s last day by choosing not to dramatize it: The events unfold casually, without any particular scheme. And yet because we know how this story will end, there’s a shivery, understated tension running beneath.”
Richard Brody (New Yorker) – “The movie is the model of decency and respect, and does honor to a life unjustly ended; it offers few surprises but is nonetheless shocking.”
Will Leitch (Deadspin) – “The movie stacks the deck a little bit, fudging some facts and inventing some characters for maximum dramatic heft — a nice woman Grant helps out and flirts with during the day turns out to be on the station platform, for example — which is a problem only if you are pedantic and chilly anyway. This is a movie about a tragedy, a pointless, stupid tragedy, and it wants to wring every emotion from it. This is not a subtle film but it is a deeply earnest one: It wants you to feel just how much was lost.”
Eric Kohn (Indiewire) – “Played by up-and-comer Michael B. Jordan (“Chronicle”) with enormous restraint and pathos to spare, Grant develops into a deeply sympathetic young man over the course of the movie, which makes the imminent climax particularly tough to watch. Coogler’s camera captures the details unavailable to the recording devices that captured Grant’s death — namely, the whole story.”
Sam Adams (Time Out) – “Coogler, who grew up in the same neighborhoods as Grant, evokes a tangible sense of place, and his staging of the climactic incident hits like a fist in the gut. It’s not enough to wipe out his reduction of this real-life figure into a composite-character martyr or the lukewarm filmmaking that’s come before, even if you’re left shaken all the same.”
David Salazar (Latinos Post) – “A powerful film with breakout performances from Michael B. Jordan & Melonie Diaz.”
