Black and Blue makes cursory references to weighty subjects — racial profiling, crime in the inner city, police corruption — but, beyond providing Alicia with a moral compass, the script doesn’t do much with them.
After serving 2 tours of duty in Afghanistan, Alicia West (Naomie Harris) returns home to New Orleans to serve as a police officer. As she makes the rounds with her partner, she quickly learns that things have changed since she left. Not so much in her neighborhood — which remains overrun by drug dealers and crime — but in how she fits into the world. Now that’s she’s a “blue”, slang for a cop, the residents of her neighborhood no longer trust her. But as a rookie and a black woman, the predominantly male police force doesn’t trust her either.
Alicia takes a night shift as a favor for her partner, Kevin (Reid Scott), so he can have a date night with his wife. She’s paired up with Deacon Brown (James Moses Black) who immediately resents being assigned to work with a rookie. While on patrol, Deacon makes an unexpected stop at an abandoned power plant. He claims he has to go inside to speak with a confidential informant. Alicia hears two gunshots from inside the building and goes in to assist her partner.
Unfortunately, she walks in on a murder scene. Deacon and a pair of narcotics officers, Malone and Smitty (Frank Grillo and Beau Knapp,) stand over a dead body as another young man pleads for his life. Before the cops notice Alicia, Malone shoots the man twice. Alicia has caught everything on her body cam. Immediately, the corrupt cops threaten her to give up the camera. Smitty shoots her but she’s saved by her bulletproof vest and escapes. Alicia realizes she has to get the body cam footage back to the precinct. Until she does, she can’t trust the cops. The neighborhood that she’s sworn to protect won’t trust her either.
Black and Blue makes cursory references to weighty subjects — racial profiling, crime in the inner city, police corruption — but, beyond providing Alicia with a moral compass, the script doesn’t do much with them. I ordinarily wouldn’t expect an action movie to do anything with these issues if it didn’t seem like it wanted to do so. When a film opens with a police officer being mistaken for a criminal simply because of her skin color, I’d expect (or hope) that it had something constructive to say.
It’s not all bad. The action scenes are well-choreographed and the story, while predictable and somewhat unbelievable, is entertaining. The cinematography is quite striking, especially the shots highlighting the urban landscape.
I will give the film credit for having a black, female lead who is more than capable of holding her own against anyone. Beyond that, though, this a fairly standard action movie with cardboard cut-outs as characters. It’s too bad that is all it ends up being.
2.5 out of 5.0 stars
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