Starring: Michael B. Jordan, Melonie Diaz, Octavia Spencer
In the early hours of New Year's Day 2009, Oscar Grant (himself, Jordan) was involved in an confrontation with police where he was fatally and unlawfully shot in full view of a crowd filming the incident. Fruitvale Station dramatises the last day of Oscar's life before his killing at the titular station.
The debut feature film by Ryan Coogler, Fruitvale Station presents a young director with a promising amount of talent. In the nature of the early work of filmmakers, it's a modest film. Brief and largely devoid of any spectacular production value, but Coogler uses these to his advantage. The story has a brief timespan and the almost camcorder-styled cinematography provides an interesting visual flavour that might be interesting to see if it will appear in Coogler's later work.
An actor on the rise himself, Michael B. Jordan brings realism to the forefront in playing Oscar Grant and succeeds in providing us with a three-dimensional character. A young man who definitely hasn't made the all the right choices in life but is still a loving father and a pretty decent person. Really, the film's at is best when it emphasises the very real comings and goings of Oscar's life as he hangs out with friends and has dinner with family. Amidst the supporting cast, Octavia Spencer gives a strong and dignified performance as Oscar's mother.
To look at the film's flaws, its sense of mood considering what a downbeat story this is at heart is a little downplayed. This film covers a very tragic and brutal event but that sense of impending doom only hits right towards the end of the film, even when there are earlier scenes that in themselves depict distressing events, such as when Oscar sees a dog get run down by a car. The film also drags towards the end and given the nature of how the story is set up, Oscar's friends and family sat around the hospital waiting to hear if he'll recover is dragged on considering the foregone conclusion.
Still, these flaws don't detract from an interesting effort by a developing film-maker. We're yet to see more work from Ryan Coogler (at present, he seems to be attached to a project known as Creed, that has no release date) but his talents certainly seem promising.
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