Worth: $9.00
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Cast:
Jeremy Pope, Bokeem Woodbine, Raúl Castillo, McCaul Lombardi, Gabrielle Union
Intro:
… deeply conflicted and messy …
War cinema is steeped in contradictions. The finest examples within the genre of portraying the atrocities of war have historically been reappropriated by the systems that wage said wars to bulk up their own numbers. The framework of the genre itself is built on empathising with those within the system, while still acknowledging the tragedy of its actions.
In the feature narrative debut of writer/director Elegance Bratton, that dichotomy is shown through a deeply personal lens, as Bratton draws from his own experiences within the U.S. Marine Corps to tell the story of Ellis French (Jeremy Pope). French is a Black Gay man who has been disowned and made houseless by his Christian mother (Gabrielle Union), and he enlists in the Corps to give his life purpose and himself a place to belong.
The specifics of his journey through boot camp, with all the violently homophobic hazing that entails, is made up of a lot of familiar parts at this point in the genre’s history. Whether it’s getting chewed out by his commanding officer Leland Laws (Bokeem Woodbine with one of his stronger performances in recent years), finding temporary comfort in the arms of Rosales (Raúl Castillo), or bearing the brunt of ostracization from fellow recruit Laurence (McCaul Lombardi), the impact of what French goes through feels oddly cold and distant, despite Pope’s best efforts to bring proper dimensions to the character and his circumstances.
Where things get genuinely uncomfortable, even more so than with the brutality on display, is how the film frames these actions and mindsets. Bratton shows a certain documentarian slant to the events shown, depicting everyone as honestly as possible in both their actions and the events that led to them (e.g. Laws’ memories from the frontline necessitating his need to turn these recruits into “monsters”), which shows self-awareness… but only to a point. The further it goes, the more willing the filmmaker seems to get in hand-waving such things, showing the boot camp process as burning away at any and all individuality in a recruit, until all that is left is Marine. It’s a personal story about erasing the personal.
The thesis is like a warped version of found family as it pertains to the Gay experience, highlighting truly heinous and stomach-churning actions and then turning right around and saying that it’s all totally fine because these people ‘accept’ him now. Despite the personal perspective, it’s difficult to shake the notion of the Marine Corps trotting out their token Black Gay friend to excuse Don’t Ask Don’t Tell-era attitudes, as if this kind of ‘we don’t see race or sexuality’ duplicity isn’t, in fact, more juvenile than the genuine understanding and acceptance of personal identity shown in Trolls World Tour. No cap.
To use a pun, The Inspection is something that a film this deeply conflicted and messy would struggle to pass. As a first-person dramatic story, its tone is akin to something dictated from within The Sunken Place (or maybe a live-action remake of Save Ralph), and as a depiction of the military, it’d likely classify as propaganda if it didn’t still make the system look predatory from the inside-out. Were it not for this film ultimately trying to put a happy face on having survived this heinocity, it might have fared better, but as it is, there’s an inescapably gross feeling attached to it that is difficult to get past.
