Judas and the Black Messiah .

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#JudasAndTheBlackMessiah

Terrifically entertaining, ambitious, passionate first(-ish) film that demands, and, most decidedly, holds your attention.

Man, give the powers-that-be credit for handing such an ambitious project to such a young filmmaker, and boy, does he deliver. Yeah, it's a little loose, and meanders here and there, but it's so emotionally vivid, that you can't not look away until that jaw-dropping ending😳.

Great work by the legendary Bobbitt, especially those eye-watering nighttime saturated exteriors(*almost* looks like 35mm🤗), and especially composer Harris, whose music, like the film, is not shy and brings so much verve and energy that you hope there's a long composing career ahead of him.

But, dude, that cast, manohman, just *filled* to the brim with piquant(🤓) turns: Howery, Sanders(he needs to be in more stuff!), Smith(needs to be in more stuff, dude has that 90s peak-#LarenzTate vibe), Thorne, Sheen(playing *against* real-life type!), Britt-Gibson(guy's been putting in the hard character-actor yards for a while now, kid's really good, hope he starts getting higher profile stuff soon), and Fishback, whose superb turn forms the emotional backbone of the film.

But yeah, the troika at the center of it all, wow: Plemons, with his patented cool-cat, likably sinister(or is that sinisterly likable🤔?) persona, effortlessly and amorally turning the screw(s); Kaluuya, fire-and-brimstone balanced by sweetly-charming, I mean, this has #Oscars written all over it; and, of course, the great Stanfield, who has the trickier, nastier, challenging-(ier?) role, but, somehow, he manages to pull off the nigh-impossible, getting you to care for someone who does something so…well, you'll just have to find out for yourself!

TL;DR: it's terrific!

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#ShakaKing #CraigHarris #SeanBobbitt
#LakeithStanfield #DanielKaluuya #JessePlemons
#DarrellBrittGibson #DominiqueFishback #MartinSheen #LilRelHowery #AshtonSanders #AlgeeSmith #DominiqueThorne Khris Davis
#FBI #BlackPanthers #FredHampton
@wbpictures @hbomax

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