Taraparain
Tells a fascinating and unsettling true story, and does so well, without pretending to have all the answers.
Mandeep Tyson
The acting in this movie is really good.
Zlatica
One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.
freeds
The story at the core of "Blindspotting" is powerful and perceptive on the trauma of racism. Exchanges of spoken word poetry between the two leads and kaleidoscopic visuals represent their inclusive, creative, violent native Oakland. Fantasy visions also partly cloak the implausible elements of the story, and illuminate the characters' psycho-social pain. But personal expression won't overcome race and class oppression, or prevent the corporate-tech-hipster takeover of Oakland. The film's real blindspot is the hole where a vision of creative collective action might have been.
R. Freed
brendaniforth
I was blown away by this film. The writing, acting, and directing is excellent. The use of rap in the script was great and Shakespearean in its use of complex language. I am in awe of the two talented leads who also wrote the crackling dialog. The issues covered are topical and need to be discussed in our society so badly. Even though the film raised serious issues throughout, they didn't forget to add humor and humanity.
Gresh854
A tight-ass, smooth moving, well-worded script, mixed with a bright yet frightening but most certainly enticing concept, sprinkled off with some fine-acted, well-rounded, deeply-driven characters makes Blindspotting an abstracted, politically-grounded, and uniquely-given film that's exclusively up there with the big-shot, jackpot, academy-nom topknots. (Verdict: B+)
jdesando
Collin (Daveed Diggs) faces the last three days of his probation and his turbulent relationship with his volatile buddy, Miles (Rafael Casal). In Blindspotting (a term use to describe one's being ignorant of stereotypes), everyone is in transition, beginning with Collin and ending with the city of Oakland, which must deal with the dynamics of gentrification while it continues struggling with racism on almost every front.More like Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing and less like Ryan Coogler's Fruitvale Station, this exciting comedy/drama catches the cultural complexity of a dynamic urban setting without despairing over the constant economic and racial setbacks. That the buddies are white and black and regularly reviewing their racial makeup (watch them dash around the use of "nigger") adds a figurative layer debut director Carlos Lopez Estrada handles deftly and almost unobtrusively.As Collin avoids being associated with a gun in his last probation days so Miles buys one for protection, leading to challenges with their friendship and the Oakland Police Department. The dramatic tension parallels the tense transition of neighborhoods as they gentrify and lead the players to question their own and their neighborhoods' identity.
Both young men are movers of furniture and the like during the day, linking them to the central change motif. As the film exploits Diggs's facility with hip-hop, it is able to catch the poetic nature of the changes while forging a relationship with reality.Thus the art and the reality intersect in a far more elegant process than might be expected. It sings in hip-hop about diversity, while it deals with the reality of a white cop murdering a black 26 year old. For a time as tumultuous as ours, Blindspotting is more powerful about change than all the editorials in the finest liberal tomes of our times.
