Judas and the Black Messiah is based on a true story of Bill O’Neal (played by LaKeith Stanfield) an FBI informant in the 1960s and 70s. At the start of the movie he is arrested for stealing a car and impersonating an FBI Officer. Roy Mitchell (played by Jesse Plemons),the FBI Agent interrogating him offers him a deal – go undercover in the Black Panther Party and the charges will be dropped. Bill takes the deal and is quickly in with the Black Panther Party of Chicago.
The FBI is worried about Fred Hampton (played by Daniel Kaluuya), the Chairman of the Black Panther Party of Chicago. They believe he is characteristic enough to be a “Black Messiah” and lead a violent revolt against the FBI and the Police. Mitchell instructs Bill to get in with Hampton. Bill begins his long stint undercover of appearing to be a completely loyal Black Panther while he’s actually feeding Agent Mitchell vital information about the party.
This is based on a actual events, but spoilers are ahead. Chairman Hampton unites the Black Panthers with other Black Power parties, and also a White pride party. Because of this the FBI finds a bogus reason to jail him and they come down harder on the Panthers. Eventually he is able to get out, but the increasing pressure from the FBI and the Chicago Police continue. More Panthers are killed and eventually Hampton is scheduled to go back to jail. But the FBI decides that they want to kill him and eliminate him completely before he goes to jail.
Throughout the movie we see Agent Mitchell becoming more and more uneasy about the FBI’s treatment of the Black Panther Party. He realizes that it has less do with containing domestic terrorism and more do to with the racism of those in power. At the same time Bill is getting more and more involved with the Black Panther Party and started to build genuine relationships with other Panthers. Both Agent Mitchell and Bill have a chance to stop the killing of Fred Hampton, but neither does. The movie ends the night before Hampton was supposed to return to jail. The FBI raid his home, kill him, and arrest other Panthers. Bill O’Neal left before the raid began.
This isn’t a perfect movie. The first half of the movie is very slow, it takes quite a while for the plot to get going. It’s hard to get a bead on what Plemons or Stanfield are doing as actors. Since both the men they are playing are acting themselves we don’t get a great sense of either character. There are too many players and new faces pop-up in the last half of the movie. The overall structure is a bit messy.
But Kaluuya is captivating as Fred Hampton. And the movie really does a great job of making you feel the rage and the powerless the Black Panthers must have felt at the time. When we are shown how the FBI and the Chicago Police treated the Panthers and others in Chicago, you can feel why they felt violence was the only necessary solution. And when neither Mitchell or Bill do anything to stop the killing of Hampton, we really see how evil doesn’t just require evil intentions, it also requires that people who know they should stand up for what’s right to do nothing. Unfortunately, this movie feels incredibly relevant now.
Yes, this is a shaggy movie, but it really got its emotions across. For that reason I’m rating it an HBO Max.