Directed By Elegance Bratton

Starring – Jeremy Pope, Gabrielle Union, Bokeem Woodbine

The Plot – A young, gay Black man (Pope), rejected by his mother (Union) and with few options for his future, decides to join the Marines, doing whatever it takes to succeed in a system that would cast him aside. But even as he battles deep-seated prejudice and the grueling routines of basic training, he finds unexpected camaraderie, strength, and support in this new community, giving him a hard-earned sense of belonging that will shape his identity and forever change his life.

Rated R for adult language throughout, sexual content, some nudity and violence.

The Inspection | Official Trailer HD | A24 – YouTube

POSITIVES

Coming of age dramas are a dime a dozen by contemporary standards, but an autobiographical coming of age drama about gay identity in a brotherhood that is counterproductive towards such aspects might just be the refreshing change of pace needed to compel audiences towards the age’s old formula. If one thing is for certain, the film is laced with passion from first time feature length writer and director, Elegance Bratton, who unloads years of emotional baggage as the figure in depiction, while proving himself to be a master of visual storytelling in the form of the unshakeable authenticity that compliments his canvas exceptionally. Bratton’s subtlety in lighting, his commanding hand in immersive handheld camera movements, and his interactions are laced with the kind of naturalistic quality that quite occasionally transcends his film with a documentary-like realism that proves emphasis of the terrifying memories that still weigh heavily on the director’s subconscious. Bratton’s alluring realism is only further complimented by the seductively transfixing imagery of nighttime photography, illustrated evocatively from Lachlan Milne, who already feels like the visual embodiment of A24 cinematography for his intimate captures and hypnotic lighting schemes through five films with the experimental production studio. Here, Milne invokes a concerning red tint in lighting to sequences eliciting curiosity or temptation in the psychology of its characters in frame, bringing with it a bravery for boldness that combines the sides of fantastical and reality for a compelling radiance that captures more in a single frame than a thousand words of dialogue ever could. Just as prominent on the technical capacities is the chameleonized essence of Animal Collective’s eclectic range harvesting everything from the sorrowful to the empowering, cementing a wide range of emotional tenacity that conjures something introspective to the sequences they cohesively decorate. In addition to this, the performances dazzle from the aforementioned trio remarkably, but none more prominent than the breakthrough thunderstorm of versatility from Pope at its forefront. Pope’s depth for French toes a minefield of vulnerability throughout the character’s helpless isolation factor, providing an evolution for resiliency that does transform him before our very eyes, even with the limitations of a 90-minute run time at his opposition.

NEGATIVES

Sadly, Bratton’s capabilities as a director far exceed his prowess as a writer, leading to a constantly frustrating screenplay that felt a bit too by the numbers to feel innovative or original to the context of its profound plot device. Predictability is one thing, with the film following a telegraphed direction that is easy to pick out from the opening five minutes, but when paired with the perils of shallow characterization and unexploited topics of delving discussion, solidifies a contradicting emphasis that constantly befell this film victim of its brief run time. On the former, the antagonist and supporting characters of the film are disappointing to say the least, residing on the comical side of Stephen King bullies, with motivations for hatred that start, end, and stumble on the limited outline of their designs, leading to a feeling of overexposure by the film’s halfway point that ages them tediously in the most meandering kind of method. For the latter, there’s much ambition to be found and appreciated from an exploration not only of French’s own individuality among his polar opposite peers, but also in the military industrial complex and how it takes advantage of a poor populace with no future direction or ambition aside from risking their lives for the promise of fortunes. All of this is unaddressed and undissected disappointingly, and in a film like this, where you could easily afford to add another twenty minutes to its storytelling, you start to see what was shed in sacrifice. The only other major problem pertaining to this film that I had was within the character make-up of French, and how his perfection in design and interaction feels a bit nepotistic when coming from a director whose life this is all but entirely based around. At times, this aspect makes French feel a bit unrealistic when compared to the environment surrounding him that is consistently trying to break him down, while other times it underwhelms the story’s conflict towards feeling inconsequential, especially considering the stakes hanging in circumstance all but allude to this being the last chance for him, after a life of crime have ruined every other possible avenue at a promising future. For my money, this troublesome background could’ve come more into play with the molding of the character, in turn elaborating more towards the struggle that we’re occasionally shown, but very rarely feel.

OVERALL
Though “The Inspection” is at times frustratingly clumsy for its surface level insight and by the numbers screenplay, wiping away the sentimentality and nuance of the director’s elaborately passionate strokes, the intensely raw performance from Pope eventually earns merit as the key to unlocking Bratton’s intimately personal dissection, with an abundance of vulnerability and adversity laid at the feet of his audacious protagonist. If the script dove a little deeper in some of the more fascinating elements to its world-building, then it too would find a comfort and confidence for the environment that French eventually elicits, but as it stands, it’s only a promising introduction to the introspective game-changers that Bratton will eventually construct.

My Grade: 7/10 or B-