Movie Review #20 - Panther
Jan. 4th, 2007 11:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
catalyst2As a historical statement of fact, this movie does not work but as a drama capturing the feel of the times, this movie is good.
First look at watch - about an hour or so in
What this movie did well was capture the feeling that flowered in the early/mid-sixties that you could do something effective to change society and that the rightness of the cause would make it prevail. The Panthers were just one aspect of that - but many movements came out of that same feeling. Of course, we have had the living shit kicked out of us for another 40 years just to make sure that we know our place. And, of course, this is exactly what this story is about - people who challenged their allotted place in society. That society reacted with such vehemence and stomped them out of existence is no surprise to us now but then the virulence of the reaction certainly made people sit up and think then.
The movie does this well - from small idealistic beginnings to functional community organisation to militant agitators to crushed fugitives, this movie dramatizes that rise and fall well. In particular, Marcus Chong as Huey Newton and Courtney B. Vance as Bobby Seale do a great job portraying these idealistic young men who rapidly lost control of the organisation as events and more radical members (another good performance from Anthony Griffith as Eldridge Cleaver) pushed them to react faster and faster.
Overall, I enjoyed it and wasn't too troubled by any factual errors - this was a drama, after all, not a documentary!
First look at watch - about an hour or so in
What this movie did well was capture the feeling that flowered in the early/mid-sixties that you could do something effective to change society and that the rightness of the cause would make it prevail. The Panthers were just one aspect of that - but many movements came out of that same feeling. Of course, we have had the living shit kicked out of us for another 40 years just to make sure that we know our place. And, of course, this is exactly what this story is about - people who challenged their allotted place in society. That society reacted with such vehemence and stomped them out of existence is no surprise to us now but then the virulence of the reaction certainly made people sit up and think then.
The movie does this well - from small idealistic beginnings to functional community organisation to militant agitators to crushed fugitives, this movie dramatizes that rise and fall well. In particular, Marcus Chong as Huey Newton and Courtney B. Vance as Bobby Seale do a great job portraying these idealistic young men who rapidly lost control of the organisation as events and more radical members (another good performance from Anthony Griffith as Eldridge Cleaver) pushed them to react faster and faster.
Overall, I enjoyed it and wasn't too troubled by any factual errors - this was a drama, after all, not a documentary!
