Monsters And Men

Monsters and Men is the story of three men affected by an officer involved shooting and how the effects from that act of violence play on the minds of these men and the decisions they then make because of it. Manny (Anthony Ramos) , Dennis (John David Washington) and Zyrick (Kelvin Harrison Jr), 3 men with dark skin struggling to get by in a country that will always look at them sideways.

I'm a firm believer in the idea that only a handful of films need to be longer than 100 mins. That seems to be the perfect amount of time for most of them to get their story across and with most films anything longer than that feels like padding. Monsters and Men is a prime example of a film that needed to go past that mark. It's split into 3 stories, the first being about Manny, the young father who witnessed the shooting. The second, Dennis, a street cop alienated by the institutionalised racism he sees everyday and the third Zyrick, a young student on the verge of escaping the ghetto but who can't let himself overlook this latest atrocity. Each gets around 30 minutes meaning none of them get enough time to breathe.

The film tries though and Manny and Dennis's stories come out on top. Manny's typifying the old saying "you're fucked if you do and you're fucked if you don't." There's a horrible whiff of inevitability to his story as he struggles with his conscience while his paranoia grows exponentially. The Dennis chapter is interesting as it explores the internal struggle he has as a Black men working in a system that he knows in its heart looks on him as a second class citizen and it provides a great moment of cringe tension during a dinner that rapidly goes wrong. The third chapter with Zyrick is the one that suffers most from the short running time. It just tries to fit in too much story and ends up only skirting the surface. 

It's a pity it all feels so rushed because it's a vitally important and topical story that needs to be out there all the time. It needs to be a national conversation but it's not because the people dying aren't deemed important enough. There's a moment during the Dennis chapter where as a cop, he tries to justify the use of deadly force to people with the same skin as him and he comes across sounding like a robot, His dead behind the eyes look as he speaks betraying him and telling us there's no justification for it at all. He has no answers to give. There's no answer to give. America is broken in regards to race relations and won't be fixed anytime soon.

This was pretty good and if it hadn't been so rushed (sorry to keep harping on about this) it would have been a lot better. The 3 leads give their all, Washington especially is excellent in a tough role showing he's definitely inherited his father's trademark intensity. Director Reinaldo Marcus Green has a nice eye for a striking image too. The film might be dark and troubling but he leaves us with a much needed final scene that's both hopeful and beautiful.

If this is showing in a cinema near you go and see it soon because it won't be around for long.