RED, WHITE AND BLUE (2020) TV REVIEW

*****

1 Episode, 80 Mins

​John Boyega gives a remarkable performance in this brutally bare-knuckle portrait of police prejudice.

Steve McQueen’s ‘Small Axe’ (2020) continues with its most brutal and bare-knuckle installment yet. ‘Red, White and Blue’ (2020) premiered as an opening film to the 58th New York Film Festival in September, but feels every bit as powerful at home on a small TV screen. It’s the incendiary tale of PC Leroy Logan - a former superintendent of the London Metropolitan Police and founding member and chair of the Black Police Association for 30 years. This film features an outstanding performance from John Boyega and its issues of police brutality and prejudice feel ever so contemporary in the #BlackLivesMatter era.

We meet Leroy Logan (Boyega) working as a research scientist having earned a BSc degree in Applied Biology at the University of London. This was a career his orthodox, authoritarian, lorry driver father Ken (Steve Toussaint) pushed him down despite Leroy’s running mates insisting he would be “good on the beat”.

Leroy is a muscular, tough young man whose strapping physique is certainly police material. However, his father has always been against him joining the cops which is a surprise to Leroy as, according to him, dad taught him to “not mix with the black kids” in order to integrate into a society where colour was not a concern (to be “more British than the British” as Logan puts it).

Everything changes when Ken is beaten to the pulp by two cops for parking his lorry in the wrong place. Interestingly enough, despite his anger at the police for inflicting this beating, this incident inspires Leroy to finally put forward his application for the feds and get out there on the beat. Upon joining, he realises that racial prejudice extends further than the badge and the challenges of being a black man in a majority white force…

I’ve always thought John Boyega was a fantastic actor ever since watching him as a council estate thug taking on aliens in ‘Attack the Block’ (2011). He has some previous form playing a black man in a majority white institution when he played Melvin Dismukes - a black security guard observing the racism of his white police colleagues in Kathryn Bigelow’s ‘Detroit’ (2017).

In that film, he showed shades of a young Denzel Washington and he’s equally brilliant here. He’s brilliant at squeezing that hulking, muscular frame into a tight police suit and wears the hat with style and gusto. But, beyond the bravado of a man in navy uniform, it’s a much more minimalist performance than you’d expect. Just watch the disgust slowly creeping in on his face when he notices that his white police colleagues have written a racial slur on his locker.

‘Red, White and Blue’ is a powerhouse portrait of 80s police brutality and racial prejudice. The scene where Leroy’s father Ken is beaten up with his glasses smacked across the ground is particularly shocking. “You’re blocking the highway..that’s a fifty quid fine” the Cockney-accented officer alleges. When he goes into his lorry to show the officers the “regulation”, he is slammed against the side of the lorry and punched in the face. You wonder whether that would still happen today.

The prejudice extends within the ranks too and behind the closed doors of the force. Like when Leroy discovers the “n” word plastered on his locker while he was away. “Next time one of you wanna write this on my f**king locker...DO IT WHILE I’M F**KING HERE! YOU LITTLE PUSSIES!” he screams before slamming his fist into his own locker.

It’s interesting that Leroy finds most solace with another officer of an ethnic minority - PC Asif Kamali (Assad Zaman). The relationship between Leroy and Asif is the beating heart of the film. Especially when they talk over lunch about Asif’s cousin’s wedding and how “Jamaicans are the original party people”. All while their colleagues do racist impressions of an Indian man and compare dealing with black suspects to being in the film ‘Zulu’ (1964).

At another moment, Asif is scolded for speaking “Indian” thanks to the ignorance of another officer who didn’t know the meaning of the word “Urdu”. This is when Asif is explaining the situation to a Pakistani couple whose restaurant has been spray painted with the words “p**is out”.

Steve Toussaint gives a strong supporting performance as the disciplinarian dad Ken Logan. The scene where he finds out his son has applied to the police is particularly powerful and the in-house confrontation between him and Logan that follows. “YOU ARE THROWING YOUR EDUCATION DOWN THE TOILET” he spits at Logan. For Ken, Logan joining the police is a disrespect to the years he has spent teaching his son to stand up against the system only for him to join the very system his dad was trying to fight.

I liked Assad Zaman’s performance as Asif too. It was especially heartbreaking when Logan and him encounter each other in the locker room and Asif doesn’t say a word to him. Not until leaving when Asif says “good luck with this lot, yeah” with the suggestion that he has already quit the force. At this point, Leroy is a lone man in an institution that doesn’t quite accept him.

But mainly this is Boyega’s show and he gives his best performance to date. A career masterpiece. Finally those comparisons with Denzel Washington seem to have some truth. This is a portrayal worthy of the great man…

‘Red, White and Blue’ is on BBC iPlayer now.