MONSTERS AND MEN: Frustrating But Subtle & Complex
When it comes to making a film about police brutality, especially a white police officer gunning down a black man, the screenwriter and director need to both take careful considerations in crafting their story so that the film doesn’t fall into the trappings of conservative ignorance or social justice propaganda. Reinaldo Marcus Green’s new film Monsters and Men sits dead center in this heated conversation. You will either appreciate its subtlety or be frustrated about its lack of insight. And just like the film, I find my response to be somewhere in the middle – I admire the film but I didn’t emotionally enjoy it.
The film’s problematic nature starts from its structure. It is essentially three short films molded together into one, in the spirit of hyperlink films. Monsters and Men is an exploration of how a police shooting affects the lives of three people – a street hustler (Anthony Ramos) who captured the crime on his phone, a black cop (John David Washington) who is more conservative than his liberal friends hoped for, and a high-school athlete (Kelvin Harrison Jr.) who slowly transforms from bystander to political activist.
Raw Camerawork, Tasteful Editing, and Good Performances
Monsters and Men is thankfully elevated by a director with an eye for poetic filmmaking. Green employs some techniques here that range from gritty handheld work to drowned-out audio to make way for music and slow close-ups. We often don’t hear what the characters say and are instead invited into their head space. The result is a tasteful blend of Kathryn Bigelow’s Detroit and Barry Jenkins’ Moonlight.
Supporting Green’s directing sensibilities are three dedicated actors. Ramos brings a caring, vulnerable, and imperfect aura that is reminiscent of Michael B. Jordan in Fruitvale Station. Just like his cop character in BlacKkKlansman, Washington continues to sell the conflicted caught-in-the-middle protagonist who understands the horror of his situation but still has his reserved moral principles. Harrison Jr. conveys the terror, confusion, and anger in his passiveness towards racism and how that eventually grows into activism, all through his facial expressions and less through his words.
All three performances are not only excellent, they deserve more screen time, if not their own movie. Which brings me to what is probably the biggest issue with the film.
Subtlety vs. Lack of Depth
No matter which protagonist Monsters and Men is currently following, it never seems to build up to something. All three stories are missing a payoff, a climax, and most of all, a resolution. It seems to be more concerned about capturing the air these characters are breathing in, which is respectfully subtle to an extent. But when the characters have very little interaction with other minor characters, and have very few dialogue confrontations, the film overall feels like a meandering exercise in atmosphere rather than a plot with a goal in mind.
From one point of view, the film accurately captures the complexity of day-to-day life and how an average individual handles racism, police brutality, and the political discourse surrounding a city. It doesn’t have a solid answer to these problems because each character has a different perspective and thus, a different answer. I can respect the film for understanding that the answer to these political topics is not black and white (pun intended).
But from another point of view, the film fails to provide an emotional range to really land a punch to the gut. Even though the three performances are great, they each have too little screen time to take the story to the next level. Just when I become emotionally invested to a protagonist, the film weaves into a brand new protagonist and I’m back to square one. The clear culprit, in my opinion, is the script. Green is a better director than he is a writer. The screenplay simply doesn’t have the dialogue, the character interactions, and the kinetic energy to maintain emotional weight. It is Green’s directing talent in subtlety that cloaks his script’s lack of depth.
Monsters and Men – Three Promising Films Meshed Into One
The biggest strength to Monsters and Men is definitely its objective viewpoint. I admire Green’s determination to pull back and leave a lot of events up to our assessment. In a year full of angry vocal films that make one firm stance after another, it is somewhat refreshing to see a film come along and just observe these characters’ lives. There’s nothing manipulative or preachy about its subject matter, and for that, I can see Monsters and Men resonating with certain viewers.
But its biggest mistake is severing our engagement twice by not only switching protagonists, but never coming back to them for a resolution. I mentioned in the beginning of this review that Monsters and Men was clearly made in the spirit of hyperlink films. The key difference is hyperlink films – Crash, Dunkirk, Magnolia, Babel, Cloud Atlas, The Big Short – will always jump back and forth. A good hyperlink film knows when to focus on one protagonist, when to switch to another, and when to come back. Monsters and Men is literally 30 minutes on Ramos, 30 minutes on Washington, 30 minutes on Harrison Jr., and then end credits – the audience is left with the question “And then what?” three times.
All three stories show potential to be their own great movie. I wanted to bond with the film. I wanted to jump into the world of these characters and sympathize with each one of them. Green’s directing clearly wants me to breathe their air and live their lives. But his writing keeps everything frustratingly distant. Looking at Green’s experiences in directing short films, it is my opinion that if he were to split Ramos, Washington, and Harrison Jr. into three short films, each with a run time of 45 minutes to an hour, all three short films would’ve turned out better than Monsters and Men.
But damn, Green can direct dramas with delicacy. Can you imagine if he and Barry Jenkins collaborated?
Did you see Monsters and Men? What did you think of it? Tell us your thoughts in the comments below!
Monsters and Men was released in the US on September 28, 2018. For all international release dates, see here.
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