Forest Whitaker’s Significant Productions, OG Project,
Michael B. Jordan, Melonie Diaz, Octavia Spencer, Kevin Durand, Chad Michael Murray, Ahna O’Reilly, Ariana Neal
Oscar (Michael B Jordan) is a young man living in the bay area trying to make a better man of himself. He’s determined to be a better son, better boyfriend, and better father to his young child. But on New Years Eve in 2009 a series of events take place that make National news on the platform of the BART train at Fruitvale Station. This film is very tightly based upon that actual events of that night.
This is a mostly true to life story produced by Forrest Whitaker’s production company. They took great effort to include the numerous cell phone recordings of the incident and the writer did a good job of pouring over the court transcripts and testimony to try to bring as much truth to the story as possible. But it’s a complex story for sure. In the end, this is a dramatized movie, not a documentary, and though they tried really hard to be unbiased, I think some bias did creep in. I’m not an expert of the case, and like anything, it’s very hard to make up your mind based upon the emotional reports of the events of that night. Certainly it was a useless event that should not have ever happened at all. But the majority of the movie is spent in background on the “new” Oscar. It’s easy to get caught up in the tendency to bestow sainthood on a young guy who was the victim in a senseless crime. Truthfully, they do show the flaws in Oscar’s life, and truthfully I think he wanted to improve some things. I have to give him the benefit of the doubt, because sometimes people can change their life around and become a better person. But it’s also a very difficult thing to do, and most times people just don’t change that much. This is way too complex a dilemma for us to decide after the fact what the future would be for anyone in this film. I don’t fault the movie much in this, although a few of the myriad of Oprah quotes would have been okay. Did the owe Oprah in some way, or is Oprah actually the spiritual leader of the African-American community that this movie portrays? I’m not sure, but certainly the point of view of the writers and producers does taint the view a little. But I don’t suppose there is any way to avoid that. Still, it’s hard not to take the side of the victim as the actions of the security team was certainly uncalled for. But there is no doubt that this is a very well done and very worthwhile movie. I enjoyed watching the film, and then researching the events of that day, and I must say I was touched by the story. I highly recommend this movie as one that is very worthwhile. It was a story that needed told, and I recommend this film.
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