ANTEBELLUM and THE HUNT added to TrustMovies' "Best of Year" list

Having this week just caught up with (and been blown away by) ANTEBELLUM, I've got to add it to my best-of-year list, along with a movie I saw months and months ago, THE HUNT, which was, at the time of its originally-to-be-released date (fall 2019), considered too topical and provocative to hit theaters. Yeah, sure: Critical and public response to both movies are typical examples our current cancel culture at work. In fact, both films actually deal with the extremes of this idiot culture, via the ever-popular movie genre of the survival thriller. 

These two movies are first and foremost "entertainments" whose plots and themes just happen to be so timely and important that they grab the intelligent viewer on several levels and never let go.

Antebellum -- written and directed by Gerard Bush and Christopher Renz -- actually doubles as a mystery whose complete solution does not unveil itself until literally the film's final shot -- which then has you immediately going back and back into what you've just seen to start piecing together those oddball fragments that didn't quite make sense at the time. Now everything fits. With most mysteries, the set-up and the mystery are a lot more fun than the conclusion and solution. Antebellum turns the usual expectation on its ear.

If you don't know much about the movie's plot, please keep it that way. This is the one film this year that was most undeservedly ruined by critics' (and audiences') spoilers. The opening scenes set in our Civil War, complete with traumatized slaves at work, are difficult to watch for their violence and injustice. Yet by the finale, this will have taken on such new and important meaning that the necessity to the film of this violent beginning increases tenfold. In fact, those would-be revolutionaries who attempted this week to take over Capitol Hill would undoubtedly applaud the sleazy scenario going on in Antebellum. The movie is that timely. 

Plus, it has Janelle Monáe (above right, with Kiersey Clemons, and further above) giving what is certainly her most important performance to date. Even more so than Get Out and Us, the movie brings to life the results, small and huge, of America's continued racism, while holding up a mirror to the way we lived then and live now. Why the American South has been allowed to purvey its constant memorializing and celebrating of its treasonous war appears even more ridiculous and stupid in our current times. Old habits die hard -- especially when they keep alive the economic policies and racism that have served the white elite so well for so long.

Not as exceptional nor quite as interesting a film is THE HUNT. Yet it's still special enough to make an end-of-year "best" list by demonstrating how a good genre movie can tackle important social themes while providing crackerjack entertainment. What dismayed many viewers seems to be the fact that this movie turned the table on the expected roles of hunters and victims. Yet this works wonderfully well by calling into question our seemingly current need for political correctness to dominate rational thinking.

The movie has a marvelous heroine in Betty Gilpin (below), who imbues her role with smarts, street-savvy and plain old physical strength and endurance. Directed by Craig Zobel from a screenplay by Nick Cuse and Damon Lindelof, the movie begins with a bang and never lets up on the pacing, thrills and suspense. Surprisingly, actors such as Emma Roberts and Ike Barinholtz are dispensed with quickly, which leaves the remainder of the film to Gilpin and, finally, Hilary Swank, as her nemesis.

One of the major points made by The Hunt is that class and economics, rather than race or racism, is causing our country's huge divide -- worth considering and exploring and then acting upon until something is really done about the disgusting wealth gap. Meanwhile, we've got this little movie to make its point in mostly breathtaking and breath-holding fashion.

If you haven't seen these modern-day political movies-cum-genre-films, stick 'em on your list ASAP. 

Aaron Sorkin's THE TRIAL OF THE CHICAGO 7 and Steve McQueen's MANGROVE vs Peter Morgan's safely elitist/escapist THE CROWN

Right off the bat I must admit that my attitude toward Britain's Royal Family pretty much mirrors that of moviemaker Terence Davies as described in his rich and moving documentary, Of Time and the City: the sooner our world (and especially Britain) is rid of this nutrient-sapping plague, the better off we'll all be. Goodness knows, we will have much less gossip fodder for the tabloids and soap opera for the TV -- but, hey, them's the breaks. If you're a huge fan of the Netfix series THE CROWN, as so many folk currently are, our Sunday Corner correspondent Lee Liberman has covered the series in depth already, so TrustMovies himself will simply say that when his spouse and he began watching it several years back, we stopped after a few episodes, finding it, as spousie surmised, just more "Royal Family Bullshit" (RFB). 

Coming back to The Crown in the current Season Four (due to all that media hoopla), and again lasting only a few episodes, we were quicky enmired in more RFB, the leading purveyor of which is certainly Peter Morgan, writer/creator of The Crown, as well as of The Queen, who, though he writes wittily and entertainingly, still gives us mostly RFB -- granted with a goodly amount of the Royal Family's pecadilloes in plain view (an alternate titled for the series might have Pecadilloes on Parade!). 

This offers up the chance for audiences to escape into a white, elitist fantasy, while simultaneously feeling superior to the mostly silly twats on view -- really quite an unbeatable combo for mainstream entertainment. The new season is also an opportunity to see some of Britain's and America's finest actors strutting their stuff (quietly and oh, so seriously, of course!), from Olivia Colman (the Queen) to Gillian Anderson (a very fine Margaret Thatcher) and Josh O'Connor (above, as a glum, dumb Prince Charles). 

A very different look at the Britain of the second half of the 20th Century (circa 1970) can be found in MANGROVE, one of the five new films from writer/director Steve McQueen that are part of Amazon Prime Video's new Small Axe series. Mangrove is a hard film to watch because it deals openly and honestly with British racism, especially by the police, during this time. It mirrors our own racism here in the USA, and though it is not overly violent, the entitled, racist -- both casually and nastily --  attitude of  the white, upper-class establishment will be difficult to watch for those of us who grew up in that time either in Britain or here in the USA and tacitly allowed all this to go on. And on. Particularly at this current time, as the Black Lives Matter movement grows and more and more about the racism of then and now comes to light.

Mr. McQueen is a tad heavy on repetition and on some of his messaging about the need to organize and join together to defeat the white elite, but mostly he draws such wonderful performances from his fine cast (that includes Letitia Wright, above, and Shaun Parkes, below) and, along with his co-writer Alastair Siddons, gives us a splendid court trial (of The Mangrove Nine), during which he effectively puts us in a position that comes close to being a member of the jury on this case that his film finally works on every level.

Folk who, when they hear the words Notting Hill, immediately think of Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts, may instead now find themselves remembering instead this little-but-major movie that reminds us of what has been accomplished and how much yet remains to be done.

The tale told in Aaron Sorkin's newest, THE TRIAL OF THE CHICAGO 7 (streaming on Netflix), is much more complex than that of Mangrove, and though both films use a lot of exposition, Mr. Sorkin, not simply clever but also smart, manages to entertain us royally, as well as educate us about a genuinely fascinating trial that captured the world's attention back in 1969. Sorkin's star-studded cast includes everyone from British actors such as Sacha Baron Cohen, Eddie Redmayne and Mark Rylance to Frank Langella (who makes a terrific Judge Hoffman) and Joseph Gordon-Levitt (below), who aces the role of this film's most complex character, a highly traditional and conservative prosecutor who also possesses scruples and morals.

Sorkin's movie is one of this year's best, and while everything about it resonates, for TrustMovies, the most surprising moments came as I watched the film's black defendant Bobby Seale, along with Fred Hampton, and realized how differently I view these men now than I had at the time of the trial -- when Black Panthers seemed to me a frightening bunch and what they were telling us was too overstated to be believed. Watching this really terrific movie in the context of what's going on today made me realize even more strongly how naive I was at that time. 

So go to The Crown for escape if you must, but see Mangrove and The Trial of the Chicago 7 to get reacquainted with British and American history and "justice for all." 

Tom Ratcliffe/Becky Paige's THE STAND: HOW ONE GESTURE SHOOK THE WORLD is a magnificent and model documentary on history and black lives in sports

Anyone interested in (the entire United States of American ought to be at this point in time) the provenance of that still-resonating "knee" that Colin Kaepernick first took back in 2016 must see the new and exemplary documentary about the protest of black athletes during the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico City.

THE STAND: HOW ONE GESTURE SHOOK THE WORLD is only the second film directed by Tom Ratcliffe (shown at left, he also directed Bannister: Everest on the Track) and by Becky Paige (her first), but to TrustMovies' mind both Ratcliffe and Paige have done an extraordinary job of combining history, politics, black activism, student activism (Mexican variety), sports, the Vietnam War and so much more into a single 70-minute documentary that proves as riveting as it is important to every one of those subjects mentioned above.

Colin Kaepernick is still paying for his actions -- his professional sports career seems broken -- and it turns out that the Black athletes Tommie Smith and John Carlos (shown below) who took that stand back in 1968 paid an all-too-similar price.

The doc begins with but a brief look at "the stand" and then circles round to address all of the history and issues that informed the actions of the Black American Olympic winners who took that "stand" -- along with the Australian athlete and champion Peter Norman, who stood with Smith and Carlos and wore that blue-and-white button in solidarity with his Black compatriots, thus destroying his own career in the process. Australia's own racism regarding its Aborigines is all too similar to the USA's history of slavery and Black dis-empowerment, while the powers-that-were on the Olympics committee back then do more than presage and mimic the crass and venal stupidity of the NFL today.

The filmmakers are fortunate to have been able to interview for the film a number of the athletes involved back then and still alive today, as well as other folk including journalists and members of the Harvard Rowing Team, whose surprising contribution was a help to the cause. If the devil is in the details, so is the glory, and Ratcliffe and Paige (she is shown at right) have marshaled quite an array of detail that builds to make this documentary so special. They have also been able to connect the visuals and verbiage just about perfectly to keep our eyes and ears primed. Early on, one team member recalls his growing up in America's South, against a shot of black and white kids playing together. "The white kids wanted to play with us, but their parents wouldn't let them. When I asked my momma why this was, she told me -- It's just the way it is."

The movie credits long-time and still-going activist Harry Edwards (above) with helping to educate the players, both black and white and organizing the anger into worthwhile protest. Mr. Edwards was and is a marvel to see and hear. And to listen Tommie Smith (below) recall and speak out about his muscle and groin injury during that memorable day is to find yourself as close to being in his shoes (and shorts) as would seem possible.

The way the documentary handles Vietnam and these black men's attitudes about coming back home after fighting for the USA -- to find the racism not merely unchanged but maybe even worse -- puts to utter shame a piece of sloppy dreck like the current Spike Lee fiasco, Da 5 Bloods, which manages to reduce all this to schlocky, protracted, would-be entertainment that goes on for over two-and-one-half hours. The Stand lasts 70 minutes, and there's not a wasted moment. This is one magnificent, necessary, timely documentary -- the best I've seen so far this year.

From 1091 Pictures, The Stand: How One Gesture Shook the World hits streaming tomorrow, Tuesday, August 4 -- for purchase and/or rental.
Do not miss it.

HEAT AND DUST: Blu-ray/DVD debut for Merchant/Ivory's 4K-restored semi-classic tale of India in the 1920s and the 1980s

If it is not quite up to the levels of those James Ivory and Ismail Merchant classics, Howard's End, Maurice, A Room With a View, or The Remains of the Day, not to worry.  The Cohen Film Collection's new release of the 4K restoration of the duo's 1983 film, HEAT AND DUST is more than good enough to rate a viewing (or two -- if not an outright purchase).

This lesser-known but quite fine collaboration, featuring a screenplay by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala (based on her novel), continues the team's exploration of the sub-continent, its history, culture and mores, with the usual accent on the stupidity and cretinous entitlement of British rule -- without ever leaving out India's own stupidity and backwardness in its attempts at self-rule. The ironies here literally stumble over each other in their sad, merry dance.

Director Ivory, pictured at right, and his screenwriter also poke fun at the American search for "identity and inner peace" that grew ever more assertive during the latter half of the last century, as the young and naive, impacted by the Hare Krishna and other sects, descended upon India in record numbers, searching and/or whining to beat the band.

The young actor, Charles McCaughan (shown below, right), who embodies this American abroad, is a delight, and thanks to the filmmakers' ability to explore human frailty, hypocrisy and denial so cleverly and gracefully, no taint of nastiness or the misanthropic is ever felt.

The director and screenwriter also excel at making clear how the British view of the Indians (just as vice versa) is tainted, so that anything we hear from either about the other must be taken with that proverbial grain of salt. Oh, it very well could be true. But ambiguity always remains.

The stories here span two time periods: India of the 1920s, during which the assistant collector (Christopher Cazenove, above, left) and his new bride (the gloriously beautiful Greta Scacchi, above, right) must adjust to both their British bosses and the India royalty around them.

This tale plays out against another of India in the 1980s, where we find Scacchi's great niece, played by Julie Christie, above, setting out to learn as much as possible about her great aunt's story. Both tales fascinate, and both actresses are, as expected, first-rate -- as is the entire cast, which is also to be expected in a Merchant/Ivory presentation.

Also important to the story is royalty, personified via the Nawab (above, played by Shashi Kapoor, who died only this past week, at age 79), who is quite drawn to the wife of the assistant collector, even as Ms Christie's character finds herself growing closer to the husband (Zakir Hussain) of the Indian family with whom she is boarding during her research.

Back and forth we go, but under Ivory and Jhabwala's firm and constant hands, we are never confused nor unsure about where we are -- even if, quite intentionally, we can not always be certain of motive or even occasional actions. Eventually all (or most) is revealed, and the results leaves us satisfied but a little sad, as does so much the fine work of this storied team.

Along the way, we're treated to some gorgeous and amazing set pieces --state dinners and the like -- and even get another small but sharp and juicy performance from Merchant/Ivory regular Madhur Jaffrey (shown below, behind those binoculars), playing the mother of the Nawab.

And so it goes, for yet another of this pair's remarkable forays into human nature and cultural prisons. Running a lengthy but always interesting two hours and ten minutes, Heat and Dust will hit Blu-ray and DVD this coming Tuesday, December 12, in a two-disc set packed to the gills with Bonus Features. I hope that Cohen Media Group will continue its restorations of these Merchant/Ivory films until we're able to see every last one of them so beautifully and rigorously restored.

WHOSE STREETS? Documentarians Sabaah Folayan and Damon Davis answer the question

Here we are again, back in Ferguson, Missouri, and the death of Michael Brown and the aftermath of that death. Yet, as much as you may have heard, seen and read about young Mr. Brown and the city and peculiar culture of Ferguson (and TrustMovies saw, heard and read quite a lot about it during those fraught weeks following that August 2014 shooting), nothing has had quite the impact carried by the new documentary, WHOSE STREETS?, directed and co-produced by the team of Sabaah Folayan and Damon Davis (shown below, with Mr. Davis on the left).

The documentary's sense of vivid immediacy comes via the footage videoed during the time immediately after the shooting and beyond, as Ferguson residents -- some of them activists and civic leaders, most of them just inhabitants -- take to the streets in grief and anger as, slowly, the history of this mostly black city-under-siege come to light. Yes, the movie is too long and too repetitive (more judicious editing could have easily snipped ten to fifteen minutes), but its power and timeliness is unassailable. Unless, of course, you're one of those who marched (or would have liked to) for white supremacy last week in Charlottesville.

The angle taken by Ms Folayn and Mr. Davis is direct and personal. As one elderly protestor notes early on: "We're not doin' this just to be rantin' and ravin'. We want to talk about this issue." The issue, of course, turned out to be about much more than Brown's death, which was a horrible outcome of the continued suffering that residents of Ferguson have experience down the decades. (The Federal investigation into this showed quite clearly the injustice at work here.)

In addition to Ferguson residents, we also hear from the police, the Missouri governor, and even from that weak sister, President Obama. The media coverage -- we see prevaricator Brian Williams and Fox News, among others -- was often garbage, as it remains today, but some of the witnesses and residents proves compelling, in particular a young father whose CopWatch camera captures quite a lot (until the lease on his apartment is refused renewal by the corporation that owns the building), a young mother and her daughter (who isn't so happy about all her homework), and a young woman whose chant, "We will continue to fight for our rights!" proves a rallying cry for a neighborhood.

These people and others help bring the movie to sad and angry life. When a second young man -- Vonderrit Myers -- is also killed in October 2014, the movement, as one protester explains, is "re-energized."  The film is full of angry, poignant moments -- from the chant of "This is what Democracy looks like!" (if only) to a demonstration leader advising the local clergy to "Get up off your ass and join us!" to a young man who explains, "I gotta live here when they (the media) leave."

The single shot of the face of a lone black policewoman during the demonstrations may be worth the entire movie, and by the time we get to the non-indictment of Darren Wilson (the police officer who shot Michael Brown) and the riots/protests begin once again, you will more than understand how the Black Lives Matter movement arose of out of these -- and so many other -- deaths of unarmed black men and women.

From Magnolia Pictures and running a little long at 100 minutes, Whose Streets? opens tomorrow, Friday, August 18, here in South Florida exclusively at the O Cinema Wynwood. Wherever you live around the USA, click here to locate the theaters nearest you.

February's Sunday Corner With Lee Liberman -- HIDDEN FIGURES: When computers were black and wore skirts

Producer/writer/director Theodore Melfi's (St. Vincent) film HIDDEN FIGURES, for which he has been rewarded with an Academy Award nomination for best picture, is a perfect Valentine to Black History Month. (See Melfi in 3rd photo from bottom.) Based on the book by Margot Lee Shetterly (below), whose father worked at NASA, it tells the story of Katherine Johnson (Taraji P. Henson, at center, right), Mary Jackson (Janelle Monáe, near right), and Dorothy Vaughan (Octavia Spencer, far right), three of many black women instrumental in the space race of the 1960's.

Satiric, educational, and full of feel-good's, it has the makings of a long-running sit-com. It brings together the disparate worlds of early space science and Jim Crow South, beaming bright on the latter with enough good humor to shame those who play dumb to our racist past, and by inference, our intractable racist present.

Jim Crow law legislated segregation from the period of Reconstruction until President Lyndon Johnson orchestrated the passage of the Civil Rights laws of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965. (While segregation dominated the South by law, Northern segregation was enforced through practice -- bank lending and job discrimination, and de facto school segregation.) In the South segregation laws were posted in schools, rest rooms, water fountains, restaurants, work lunch rooms, transportation, etc.

When we meet our three protagonist human "computers" (the women who did the mathematical calculations of space flight with pencils, slide-rules, and chalk) in the 1960's, they are subject to embarrassing working conditions but thrived on the opportunity to work at NACA (National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, 1915, morphing into NASA, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration in 1958). Langley, Virginia, where the story is set, is now one of three research facilities among NASA's ten field sites.

Black women with college degrees were likely to teach, but a confluence of events led President John Kennedy to take action that would change the trajectories of some, notes Richard Paul in "Air &Space Magazine" 3/2014. Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin's earth orbit, the failed Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba, Alan Shepard's suborbital space flight, the Freedom Rides and imposition of martial law, and Kennedy's man-on-the-moon-in-a-decade speech all happened within weeks of each other in 1961. Kennedy used federal employment to speed integration at the same time NASA and its contractors were creating 200,000 jobs. Kennedy assigned Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson to head both the National Aeronautics and Space Council and the Committee on Equal Employment Opportunity. Thereafter and with Johnson's propulsion, NASA joined the front lines of the civil rights revolution.

In 2015, math genius Katherine Johnson received the recognition she deserved when President Obama awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom, noting her work in calculating the trajectories of our first human space flight and her figuring that got John Glenn to the moon and back. (She is now 99 years old.)

Melfi has a humorous touch and he humorously touches all types of racism -- institutional Jim Crow, polite naive racism (of which whites are all guilty at one time or another), and the insults of the nasty bigot. The film satirizes a catalogue of acts of discrimination, such as a tableful of white male heads swiveling as a black woman takes a seat. In a particularly memorable example, Katherine Johnson gets promoted from the black women computers group to the task force for space flight but finds that there's no segregated bathroom in the building. We see her dashing madly across the sprawling Langley campus to a segregated bathroom where she can relieve herself legally, though toilet paper and paper towels are in pitifully short supply.

Kirsten Dunst plays a chilly white supervisor who has no notion of her own unconscious racism; Jim Parsons (above, center left) is Paul Stafford, Head Engineer of the Space Task Group, a nasty competitive bloke at ease taking credit for work that isn't his. Boss Al Harrison (Kevin Costner, above, right, in another of his bland laconic good guy roles) only has eyes for the collective goal -- surpassing the Soviet launch of Yuri Gagarin into space. Harrison seizes on Johnson's genius at numbers and promotes her to the dismay of good-ole-boy engineers; also he knocks down the 'white women only' sign so his math star doesn't have to go missing running across campus to go to the bathroom. ("Here at NASA we all pee the same color.")

Meanwhile Dorothy Vaughn (Ms Spencer, below, left) is running the group of black women "computers" (in the building across campus with the segregated rest room) without the title and management pay she deserves. The IBM computer arrives and Dorothy can see the day they will all be replaced by machines -- we like how she solves this, and also Mary Jackson's creativity. Jackson (Ms Monáe, below, right) has a math and physics degree and wants to study engineering, but the schools are segregated. She sweet-talks a judge.

The upbeat joy in the stories of the three women's race to the moon is propelled by a lively, happy score guided by hip hop artist Pharrell Williams (below, left, with director Melfi), gaining him two Oscar nominations for songs, "Running" and "I See a Victory". (Williams wore two hats, also serving as a producer on the film.) He contributed 8 original tunes. Says A.D. Amarosi, Philadelphia Inquirer, "...Williams rises high; not just with sweet R&B appropriate to the Motown era and the optimism of the space race but with his usual sunny pop-hop, this time tinged with strains of gentle folk and sacred song."

Yes, "Hidden Figures" rises high as history-telling and message-making. By implication it speaks to Southern activist Dr. William Barber's call for "The Third Reconstruction" -- new advocacy and peaceful disobedience to stop voter suppression, housing, debt, employment, environmental, and sexual minority discrimination, not to mention cabs that drive by and hands that clutch purses in the presence of a black man. After every step forward in the march to equality, elites push back, providing workarounds to existing anti-discrimination laws; thus "Hidden Figures" is a call both for more scientific journeys into space and more genuine racial equality.

In April, Netflix will launch a new series "Dear White People" based on Justin Simien's 2014 movie of the same title about a group of black students dealing with polite racism at a mostly white ivy league college -- another small step in 'the third reconstruction'.

Hidden Figures, from 20th Century Fox and running 127 minutes, is playing nationwide now. To find the theaters nearest you, click here.

The above post was written by 

our monthly correspondent, Lee Liberman.

In Alexandre Arcady's taut, unsettling 24 DAYS, France begins to deal with crimes against Jews

The year was 2006, with the event the kidnaping (for money) and then the torture of a young Frenchman, Ilan Halimi, Jewish and of Moroccan descent, as police and family unite to try to find and save him. The film that has been made from this true story, 24 DAYS, is an extremely unsettling one -- not simply because it deals with the kind of seemingly random, hugely unfair and mostly stupid and senseless crime -- but because that crime deliberately targeted Jews, even if, in this particular case, it was less religious fervor driving the kidnappers than that old saw that equates Jews with money.

As directed by Alexandre Arcady (shown at left and whose only other film I have seen is the pretty but so-so family crime drama, Comme les cinq doigts de la main, also know as Five Brothers and unreleased here in the USA), 24 Days is tension-filled and relatively fast-paced, tossing us into the lives of both the family (as it comes together to help retrieve its missing member) and the police force (who work around the clock to ferret out and apprehend the kidnappers). Known more for making pot-boilers than artistic, critically-approved movies, M. Arcady seems to have tamped down his penchant for mainstream excess and has delivered a surprisingly effective film that works on several levels.

24 Days taps into the fear and horror felt by Ilan's family, especially his mother, given a rich, layered performance from Zabou Breitman, above, right, with Syrus Shahidi, who plays her soon-to-be-missing son. (Ms Breitman, by the way, is also the director and co-writer of one of TrustMovies' favorite films: The Man of My Life.)

Pascal Elbé, left, uses his knack for strength, endurance and repressed emotion to make much of the character of Ilan's dad, whom the police use -- due to those very factors -- as the family member who must deal with the top-dog among the kidnappers.

Interestingly, Ilan's undoing was having gone on a date with a pretty young girl used as bait to entrap the boy, even though he already has a girlfriend/maybe-fiancee with whom he is heavily involved. Infidelity, however, is hardly an excuse for what happens to him.

For their part the police -- with Jacques Gamblin (above, left), Sylvie Testud and Éric Caravaca (above, right) in the major roles -- are shown as professional, caring folk, even if there appears, finally, disagreement among them as to what kind of crime this really is -- simple kidnapping-for-money or one inspired instead by race hatred. (The reason for the kidnapping can also effect how the police investigation is handled.)

The movie, to its credit, comes down on both sides, offering money as the main object of gain, but also showing how the treatment of Ilan -- casual torture, with the young man seen as something less than human by his kidnappers -- is most likely due to his being Jewish, and a helpless victim.

The film hones to a near-documentary style that shows us what is happening and how the rather large group of people involved in the kidnapping work together, under the thumb of its somewhat deranged leader (a frightening performance by Tony Harrisson, above). It also shows how easily the gang might have been tripped up had any of the locals -- who clearly knew that something nefarious was going on -- only come forward.

Unlike so many kidnap movies, this one offers none of the feel-good, nick-of-time resolution which we might expect or hope for. It seems to me that the film adheres as closely to the facts of the case as it can, and thus provides grueling object lessons in police procedure (good and bad), racism, family unity and the need for protection.

From Menemsha Films and running 108 minutes, 24 Days opens this Friday in New York at the Quad Cinema in Manhattan and the Kew Gardens Cinema in Queens; in Los Angeles at the Laemmle Music Hall; and in another dozen cities across the country in Illinois, Massachusetts, New Jersey and (mostly) Florida. Click here and scroll down to see all currently scheduled playdates, cities and theaters.