Skip to main content

Quickie Review - The Retrieval

The Retrieval is one of those movies where you read the synopsis and tell yourself, "No thanks, I'm not in the mood for this." It's the odd era of American History that nobody talks about. When slavery wasn't really legal, but wasn't really illegal either. It was an odd time and this story, which tells of a young black boy and his "uncle" who are sent out to coax a freed man to come home, so that their bounty hunter "boss" can collect and pay them. 

The obvious conflict of interests here are the least of the story. The story is so simply told, but with such incredibly complex themes, that you lose yourself in the story, much like a stage play requires you to really fixate on the minute details. I don't know if the writer/director Steve Eska thought of this, when filming, but each of the main character's gaits is different and perfectly describes their attitudes towards life and their own self being. It's a pretty incredible feat. 

The story isn't meant to be heart-wrenching, because we know the plan from nearly the beginning. It's a coming of age story, but for everyone. Even the most awful people in the film, have some semblance of order in their lives. There are two or three scenes, where people's actions are simply a result of doing what one has to. The symbolism is scarce as most of the story is on the surface and the deepness comes from the characters themselves. With relative unknowns in the cast, you really spend a lot of time watching them and realize how brilliantly acted it is. Will played by Ashton Sanders is amazing as the conflicted youth, protecting himself while trying to figure out who he is. Tishuan Scott is Nate, the man the seek to bring back and the one who changes everything for everyone he comes across. William Oberst Jr., who is one of those "hey that guy is in it" is truly amazing, because you want to hate him, but you don't, whereas Keston John plays Marcus, the guy you want to give a pass, but realize you can't. 

If you're looking for a glitzy tale of slavery and human rights, this isn't it, but that's not to say it's all sadness and horror. It's men being men and a boy trying to become a man. It's that simple concept that makes the film work perfectly. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

White Privilege

This was a post I wrote on Facebook after surprisingly not seeing any moaning about the Documentary by Jose Antonio Vargas, titled White People Dayyum! I just scrolled my timeline and not a single white person got their feelings hurt by White People. I unfortunately haven't seen it, but the number of fake accounts that popped up on twitter, tells me it was a damn good show. Here's the thing. If someone of color aka non-white says "White Privilege," are you offended? If you said yes, then you are exhibiting white privilege. It has nothing to do with how hard you work or study, how you stayed out of trouble, because here's the thing, that is entirely the point. Somewhere out there, there are 100 Black, Spanish, Native American, Arab, Asian, who worked and studied as hard as you and never got in trouble, but they don't have what you "earned" or achieved. Stop looking at the one person you know who isn't white that achieved as your benchmark. Loo
10 comments
Read more

11 Rules of Life - Bill Gates?

I read this on Facebook this morning.  A friend had posted it and said that every child should have to receive this. I of course read it and started to think.  I immediately wondered who really wrote this, as I rarely see things like this attributed to the proper person.  I immediately found it was written by Conservative Charles J. Sykes when he wrote a book about how America is dumbing down our youth.  I read it twice and started to wonder how true it was.  Below is a link to the actual picture I saw. So let's look at each of the rules and analyze them. Rule 1: Life is not fair — get used to it! - Life is not fair in that we are not all afforded the same opportunities based on race, creed, color, socio-economic background, but in general, those who are afforded the same opportunities to succeed are very often rewarded for their individual efforts.  Sure there may be underlying circumstances, but hard work is proven to pay more often than not and those who strive for succ
Post a Comment
Read more

Quickie Review - Finding Vivian Maier

While I thoroughly enjoyed the film, especially the first 15-20 minutes, I was a little bothered by the way the film played out. The interviews with the clearly disturbed brother, sister and the mother, who obviously, was in for a cut, didn't need to be in the film. Then the woman who suggested abuse, yet seemed to have her life defined by Maier, as she tried to muster every ounce of emotion and fake guilt. Her friend, more than happy to be party of the charade. People who talk about abuse for the first time, usually don't do so on camera. The fact these scenes were so prominent, shows that they felt wronged that they were not rewarded. Maloof on the other hand, seems to disappear from the documentary during this part, almost hiding away from the fact, he went from complete praise, to even making money off of her, to destroying her personal legacy. He almost mentions the family of boys taking care of her rent, as an afterthought. Her burial spot, never shown, yet a video of her
7 comments
Read more