Storyline
Bill O'Neal infiltrates the Black Panthers per FBI Agent Mitchell and J. Edgar Hoover. As Black Panther Chairman Fred Hampton ascends, falling for a fellow revolutionary en route, a battle wages for O’Neal’s soul.
Directors
Cast
Daniel Kaluuya, Jesse Plemons, Robert Longstreet, Martin Sheen, Amari Cheatom, Lakeith Stanfield, Algee Smith, Nick Fink, Ashton Sanders, Darrell Britt-Gibson, Terayle Hill, LilRel Howery, Jermaine Fowler, Dominique Fishback, Dominique Thorne, Caleb Eberhardt, Ian Duff, Nicholas Velez, Graham Lutes, Khris Davis, Amber Chardae Robinson, Ikechukwu Ufomadu, James Udom, John West Jr.
Trailer
Reviews
91
Mostly, though, it’s Kaluuya and Stanfield — two actors who seem destined to be hailed for career-best turns with every subsequent project — who make Judas and the Black Messiah such an incendiary watch.
91
Black Messiah's center of gravity has to be a Hampton you can't look away from, and Kaluuya — alternately raw, tender, and incendiary — duly electrifies every scene he's in. Righteous as the road may be, his Fred hasn't been flattened to fit the broad Wikipedia-worn contours of a martyr or a hero; he lives and breathes, down to the last indelible frame.
90
TheWrap
Magnetic with righteous fury, Kaluuya plays Hampton with steel-plated conviction that has no time for half-measures. The gifted actor maintains a strict demeanor in scenes speaking truth to the people but a more calibrated mien in the ones exhibiting Hampton’s diplomatic skills, like a meeting with the Crowns, a fellow revolutionary group.
90
The story is infuriating — not in the way King presents it, not at all, but in its details. The manipulation of justice is heartbreaking. Though sadness isn't what you'll most likely feel while watching. Anger is. The betrayal in Judas and the Black Messiah extends far beyond the title character, making it an even greater tragedy.
88
Judas and the Black Messiah is my kind of dramatized Chicago history. It’s a real movie, for one thing — brash, narratively risky, full of life and sneaky wit (even if the dominant tone is one of foreboding) and brimming with terrific actors.
