Directed by : Shaka King

It's not a question of violence or non-violence. Its a question of resistance to fascism or non-existence within fascism! You can murder a liberator, but you can't murder liberation. You can murder a revolutionary, but you can't murder revolution. And you can murder a freedom fighter, but you can't murder freedom!


Spoilers ahead.. 

Fred Hampton (Daniel Kaluuya) a young activist who becomes Chairman of the Black Panther Party, making him a very unlikeable person for the Police, FBI and the government as they want to stop out the revolution that would create loud noise.  Bill O'Neal (LaKeith Stanfield) gets hired (or blackmailed) into working as a spy for FBI as we get to see the rise of Fred Hampton and also how brutal the end is. 

In 'The Trial of the Chicago 7', we got little glimpse about Fred Hampton but we get to know him more here, though the story is told from the point of view of Bill O Neal. Some may complain that we get to see less of Fred Hampton, but I didn't felt so, maybe a reason of it is Daniel Kaluuya makes a deep impact in every scene he is present in the film portraying Fred Hampton brilliantly. By now everyone including me love his special speech as Captain Fred, the kind that would motivate people easily, for the passion and energy and most importantly belief he spreads in the people. Little angst mixed in for how Jimmy Palmer (Ashton Sanders) was killed off. I think for that scene alone, Daniel deserved the oscar. Also, love Deborah Johnson (Dominique Fishback) expressions changing in that speech. 

LaKeith Stanfield act is enjoyable to watch too for all the various emotions he has to put in that character who is at one side betraying his own people but you may argue if he had any options, because any other black guy in his place would had done the same than preferred going to jail for long term. He's always afraid of getting caught, there's 2 wonderful scenes, one involving Judy doubting him to be involved with FBI and other where he is stuck in a gunfire happening at the Black Panthers headquarter when Fred is in jail. His scenes with Roy Mitchell (Jesse Plemons) are fun to watch, at times I was wondering if he was just using him for his purpose or maybe there was a decent bonding between them, maybe it was just occasional though he did help him out in the end only after making Bill commit something he didn't wanna do. 

The ending is ofcourse brutal and depressing.. Judas and the Black Messiah works both as a narrative about some of the main events of Black Panthers Party very well handled by the director Shaka King, and also the performances from both the leads. One of my top favourites from 2020. 

My Rating : 8/10