Writer/Director Ryan Coogle's debut film "Fruitvale Station" hits the theatres on Friday, July 26, 2013. The film's Producer is Academy Award Winner Forest Whitaker. It's the true story of Oscar Grant III, a 22-year-old Bay Area resident, as he crosses paths with his friends, enemies,family and strangers on the last day of 2008, his last day of life. Oscar Grant is a father, brother, lover, and son who resolves "to be better" in each of these roles in the coming year.
In the New York Times review of the film, A. O. Scott shared the following:
In the early hours of Jan. 1, 2009, Oscar Grant III, unarmed and lying face down on a subway platform in Oakland, Calif., was shot in the back by a white Bay Area Rapid Transit police officer. The incident, captured on video by onlookers, incited protest, unrest and arguments similar to those that would swirl around the killing of Trayvon Martin in Florida a few years later. The deaths of these and other African-American young men touch some of the rawest nerves in the body politic and raise thorny and apparently intractable issues of law and order, violence and race.We all know someone like Oscar, a combination of unfolding promise, complex, yet contradictory and indecisive. Michael B. Jordan has won resounding acclaim for his portrayal of Oscar. He is well known for his roles as Vince Howard on "Friday Night Lights" and Wallace on ""The Wire". More from A. O. Scott gives us greater insight:
There is a natural, easy sweetness to Oscar, but neither Mr. Coogler’s script nor Mr. Jordan’s performance sugarcoats his temperament. He is, for one thing, irresponsible and not always honest, unable to admit to Sophina or Wanda that he has been fired from his supermarket job for chronic lateness. Even after two stints in prison (one visited in the film’s only chronological digression), he is still selling drugs, and his vows to stop have the feel of New Year’s resolutions, inspiring more hope than confidence.
The film won dual awards at the Sundance Film Festival with one critic calling it "The Best Movie at the Sundance Film Festival. An unstoppable cinematic force." Another critic said "plenty of riveting drama including a gut-wrenching climax that elicits a powerful emotional resonance." A third critic called the film 'one of the most powerful and socially relevant movies of the year." Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a 92% rating with this assessment:
"passionate and powerfully acted, Fruitvale Station serves as a celebration of life, a condemnation of death, and a triumph for star Michael B. Jordan."Film critic Scott tells us "in truth, Mr. Coogler has made that movie, even as he has also made one full of anger, grief and frustration. His main intention — and his great achievement, as well as Mr. Jordan’s — is to make Oscar a fully human presence, to pay him the respect of acknowledging his complexities and contradictions."
Academy Award Winner Octavia Spencer is cast as Oscar's mother. Critic are praising her performance and wonder if she's laid a path to another Oscar nomination and win.
Fruitvale Station offers a great story, an outstanding director and a stellar cast. Now all it needs is you in the audience.
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