Review: Fruitvale Station

The last days of Oscar Grant III (Michael B. Jordan), a well-meaning 22 year-old African American with a criminal past he seemed to want to leave behind to look after his partner (Melonie Diaz) and young daughter. Unfortunately, a NYE train ride results in a violent scuffle, and when the police come in, everything goes to hell. The incident was captured on various cell phones by several witnesses, as the unarmed Oscar is handcuffed and grounded by police. It doesn’t end well for Oscar. Octavia Spencer plays Oscar’s long-suffering mother, whose birthday Oscar had been make preparations for.

 

A film about a real-life case of white police acting violently towards an unarmed African-American male and watched by me not too long after another such case was in the headlines. No matter what the causes of these cases individually may be, I think we can all agree that there’s too many of these incidents going on in America (and let’s not forget Rodney King in the 90s), and I think it’s pretty fair to say that some questions need to be asked about police conduct in such matters, and yes, it’s probably also fair to suggest that you also shouldn’t commit crimes in the first place, either. But watching this 2013 docudrama from writer-director Ryan Coogler, it’s really hard not to get enraged that someone died who absolutely need not have died, and that police idiocy (possibly involving racism) was largely to blame.

 

I was a bit worried watching this film that what I was seeing wasn’t accurate and was trying to turn young Oscar Grant III (played by a low-key Michael B. Jordan) into a candidate for sainthood. Taking a look at some of the facts and views of others, and having seen the film myself, I’ve got to say that the view that some have that this film is white-washing this young man’s violent/criminal past are a bit of a stretch. Yes, there are some embellishments here, like caring for an injured dog and a conversation with a woman that may or may not have happened (There seems to be enough each way here to not call total BS on it, though. His grandmother says he did actually call her for advice for a customer once, so there you go). There’s also the scene where he throws away a bag of weed to suggest he was turning his life around, that like the mystery woman, can’t be verified- but can’t be disproven either. Even if it didn’t happen, Oscar still died before he had a chance to show us he had turned his life around. Maybe he would have. Maybe not. The point is that he was killed before he really had the chance. I also believe the director stacks the deck unfairly by showing us the final video footage (out of context) at the beginning of the film. I really think that was unfair and unwise (Surprisingly, all the momma’s boy stuff appears to check out, though. He really was preparing for her birthday). For a film that wants to put Oscar in context, it’s unfortunately ironic to take that portion of the incident out of its complete whole context.

 

However, my overall thoughts here are that this man absolutely did not deserve (or need) to die if getting into a tussle on a train and mouthing off to cops were the worst things he did, and from what I can ascertain, that is indeed the case. The final moments in the film are said to be about as accurate as possible, and we also get the actual footage of the very end of the incident, as I said (Even if I quibble with the decision to put it at the beginning, at least you get to see what really happened). I don’t care how much he mouthed off, and whether it contributed to his death. It is not right to shoot an unarmed man already handcuffed and on the ground. It ends up so far beyond the notion of a guy who mouthed off to cops and got into a fight. This was a police fuck-up, and the fact that the officer who killed Oscar supposedly confused a gun for a taser...I’m not even sure if I think that’s an excuse, let alone believe it to be true. You done fucked up son, and killed a young man who was unarmed, on the ground, handcuffed, and not resisting arrest. That’s unacceptable, and I think all cops involved here got off a bit lightly to say the least. I don’t think I’m ever going to forget the documentary footage at the end with a shot of Oscar’s daughter at some kind of memorial in 2013. It broke my damn heart, and I hate kids.

 

As a film, this is pretty solid stuff and I liked the rather simple, almost docudrama approach, as it makes you feel like a fly-on-the-wall to this young man’s last moments on this Earth. Michael B. Jordan is low-key, but good. Being low-key helps in grounding this in reality. Academy Award winning actress Octavia Spencer is absolutely spot-on as his tough but loving mother.

 

There’s not much else to say here about the film’s merits except that it’s an interesting and emotional story, told in a pretty straightforward but very effective manner. This is a strong film that gets in, gets out, and leaves you sad and frankly fucking ropeable. Any fiddling with the facts appears to be miniscule enough that it doesn’t dilute or ruin the points being made here. Hell, I don’t think Coogler (who had a lot of access to public records and the like) and his cast really needed to do much, the story really does sell itself, and at no point does he try to hide Oscar’s criminal past, and no one knows whether he was turning his life around anymore than anyone knows that he wasn’t turning his life around. That may not be good enough for some, but I accepted it. It’s docudrama (ish) not documentary, anyway, and a damn good one from first time filmmaker Coogler.

 

Rating: B-