mm’s review published on Letterboxd:
Judas and the Black Messiah is a charged, powerful drama that features perhaps the best performance of the year in Daniel Kaluuya (who hasn’t been getting nearly enough attention from the awards people) and yet it took a night’s sleep for me to figure out why it didn’t land as hard as I wanted it to.
To use Judas in the title and not have the messiah character ever confront or really even acknowledge there being a Judas in his midst made the movie feel incomplete to me.
Because of that, the narrative stalled at places where it could have really kicked it into high gear.
Is that because the real Fred didn’t suspect or even entertain there being a traitor? Perhaps, and if the intent was to show how trusting he was with his friends, then great. But the best scenes of The Departed, or any “rat” movie for that matter are when Frank or whoever it is knows there’s a rat and is trying to find it.
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