Fruitvale Station

★★★★

Dir: Ryan Coogler

(2013)

A powerfully acted day in the life which utilises the darkness of social realism a la Ken Loach within the enveloping environment and race politics of John Singleton's Boyz N The Hood. It reaches for the failure of America on a racial and social level by focusing on the last day in the life of Oscar Grant (a fantastic Michael B. Jordan), gunned down on New Year's Day on the platform of Fruitvale Station, San Francisco by police officer Johannes Mehserle. The harrowing, definite and much publicised death of the man we must follow through Fruitvale Station makes Ryan Coogler's blistering debut all the more powerful.

Oscar is first and foremost a struggling father. He's down on his luck, suddenly made unemployed and for a moment toys with his past life of crime on his way through a day which still reverberates in history. He is certainly no thug; A sensitive and kind-hearted man is beautifully uncovered through his own actions; Whether he's picking a dead dog off the street and screaming, furiously, at the hit and runner or helping a girl with a BBQ recipe for her boyfriend's family, Coogler expertly creates a pulse for Oscar to guide us through the ever-growing sense of near silent dread.

Octavia Spencer is fantastic as Oscar's mother and Melonie Diaz also shines as his fierce girlfriend, Sophina but it's The Wire's Jordan who owns Fruitvale Station. There are a few slightly over done off notes along the way; When dealing in such an inevitable outcome in cinema there often are but for the most part Coogler delivers an inspired window into the dying hours in the life of a man trying to be good. These brief beautiful moments pass by and minute after minute you slowly forget Oscar's fate, or you simply refuse to believe it, making the finale of Fruitvale Station more of a powerhouse moment than you could possibly imagine.