Judas and the Black Messiah

Judas and the Black Messiah (2021) covers the road to the killing of Fred Hampton, chairman of the Illinois chapter of the Black Panther Party. It does not tell his story directly; it tells it through William O'Neal, the informant the FBI placed inside the party, a young man arrested for car theft who agreed to inform rather than go to prison. Hampton was killed on 4 December 1969, at twenty one, asleep in his home during a police raid. The question at the centre of the film is how that was made possible. Fred Hampton Jr. and Akua Njeri, his son and his partner, consulted on the production. Daniel Kaluuya plays Hampton and LaKeith Stanfield plays O'Neal. Both were nominated for Best Supporting Actor, meaning the film's two leads competed in the supporting category, an oddity much discussed that year. Kaluuya won. The film received six nominations including Best Picture and won Best Original Song for Fight for You. It runs 125 minutes. Good for: political history, the Black Panthers, and tense narrative. Less good for: because it focuses on the betrayal, there is limited room for Hampton's actual politics. The outcome is known from the start, which drains tension past a point. The raid is hard to watch.