Warning: This review contains spoilers.
Daniel Kaluuya plays a captivating Fred Hampton, and LaKeith Stanfield an anxious Bill O’Neal, with a cast of strong supporting actors—including women who show just how essential they were to the Black Panther Party. And with these knockout performances comes an examination of the need for revolutionaries when pushing for real change.
But, Hampton and the other members of the Black Panther Party were also young. Hampton was 21 when police killed him, and Mark Clark, a defense captain also killed in the early-morning raid, was 22. Akua Njeri, then Deborah Johnson, was 19 and eight-and-a-half months pregnant when she laid on top of Hampton to cover him. (O’Neal had drugged Hampton with secobarbital that night and had also provided authorities with a floor plan. Njeri says a sleeping Hampton never moved.)
Dir. Shaka King, 126 min. HBO Max
