By Margaretta wa Gacheru (posted BD September 8, 2020)
There
must be a reason Chatwick (Black Panther) Boseman’s second to last film ‘21 Bridges’
apparently bombed at the box office late last year. Why else would the public
have missed the chance to see the last film but one that King T’Challa made
before he died suddenly on 28 August?
Here we
had the biggest Black actor starring in his first post-Black Panther role. Yet
for some reason, the critics panned the film leading to few people seeing the
beloved Boseman morph from being a king to becoming a New York City cop. It got
mediocre ratings, especially by comparison to ‘Black Panther’ or any of the
other Avenger films that Boseman co-starred in.
I admit
21 Bridges might not have been the best film for him to make after he dazzled
the world in the duo-roles of King T’Challa and Black Panther. If I had been
his agent, I would have recommended he wait until the script for Black Panther
2 was done. Ryan Coogler, the BP director and screenwriter for BP2 admitted it
broke his heart that he’d never see his dear friend become T’Challa ever again.
But
frankly, 21 Bridges wasn’t half bad, that is, if you don’t mind shoot-‘em-up
cop thrillers about drug deals, dirty cops and our hero Chatwick being the one cop
who’s clean and incorruptible. As he put it in the film, it was ‘in his DNA’.
That’s because his father was a clean cop before him who had worked to root out
corruption but was killed in the process.
To me,
the real problem of 21 Bridges is not the plot. In fact, it’s solid
action-adventure with Chatwick doing his best to give his character soul, depth
and purpose. The problem more than likely is political. It’s probably because the
timing wasn’t right for public to watch a film that exposed police corruption
including cops killing with impunity when it served their interests.
That is
who most of the cops are that Detective Andre Davis (Chatwick) must deal with
after several of them are mysteriously murdered by burglars sent to grab a huge
cache of drugs that the dirty cops have an interest in. Andre already has a
history of challenging dirty cops. As the film opens, we learn he’s actually
killed several of them in self-defense.
After
that, the story unfolds fast. Its title derives from Manhattan Island’s 21 bridges
which Andre commands be shut down (along with the trains and planes) to block
the cop killers any avenue of escape.
His
fellow cops have their own agenda, but I won’t spoil the story for you. I’ll just
say that ‘Black Lives Matter’, the social justice movement was already
protesting police impunity before the film opened. So despite 21 Bridges
revealing harsh realities about cop corruption, by its amplifying such a
politically-sensitive theme, the film could have easily offended powerful
forces that didn’t appreciate the cinematic exposure and ruled ‘thumbs down’. After
that, the film’s screenings were few.
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