FRUITVALE STATION

In the early morning hours of January 1st 2009, a young man by the name of Oscar Grant was shot and killed by a police officer at the Fruitvale train stop in Oakland California. Grant was black and the officer was white. The shooting resulted in protests and riots that failed to result in any change. Grants death is just one in a string of senseless, unnecessary shootings on young, black men. This event serves as the basis for Ryan Coogler's debut film Fruitvale Station. 

The film could have traced the political ramifications of the event, but instead focuses on Grant, flowing him on the last day of his life. He's played wonderfully here by Michael B. Jordan (Chronicle). His situation is not that unusual for a 22 year old living in poverty. He want's to support his girlfriend and the daughter they have together, but he's been fired from his job and can't find another one. To fill the gap sometimes he sells weed, but he feels queasy about it. He's been to prison and he certainly has anger issues, but whatever flaws he has, and he certainly has them, he's no thug.

The ordinariness with which the film portrays him is the films best offering. American film is short on portrayals of black men and women that resist stereotype but sometimes that very mundaneness can be a doubble edged sword. The film has little to communicate beyond the senselessness of his death and by the time Oscar and his friends take that faithful trip into town the film has long run out of ways to show us that Grant was a mostly good kid trying to make the best out of his situation. With the exception of one scene involving a dog, the film doesn't dip too far into hagiography though at times I wondered how much this film was showing Oscar as an individual rather than an amalgamation of a type.

The last 20 minutes are the film's best. Coogler stages the events leading up to Oscar's death in an appropriately harrowing manner. The film doesn't get everything right but it nails the tragedy. Fruitvale Station may have more value as an expression of our currant zeitgeist than a film. It's moving and tragic but on an intellectual level does little more than ask "why?" In the wake of Oscar Grant's death and that of Trayvon Martin and those dozens of others we need a film that says more. This is a complex issue encamping attitudes towards race, poverty, gun control and the trustworthiness of law enforcement. The film encourages us to not lose sight of the human side, but this issue also cries out for a film with a more complex, fully formed worldview. Unfortunately, even a film with such a simple, self-evident message feels painfully necessary in the current climate.

Grade: B