#MONSTER WALTER DEAN MYERS MOVIE FULL#
#MONSTER WALTER DEAN MYERS MOVIE TRIAL#

On the first day of the trial, Monday, Steve sits with his attorney Kathy O’Brien and listens to Petrocelli make her opening remarks: according to the state, late last December, James King and Richard “Bobo” Evans entered a drugstore, tried to rob Mr. He names the screenplay “ Monster” after what the state prosecutor Sandra Petrocelli called him in court. Through personal notes and a screenplay he writes in his notebook, Steve recounts the 11 days between the start of the case and the jury’s verdict. Nesbitt, a drugstore owner, in a botched robbery in Harlem six months prior.

#MONSTER WALTER DEAN MYERS MOVIE TRIAL#

Find more of his work at and -year-old Steve Harmon recounts his and James King’s trial for the killing of Mr. More like the compelling urban courtroom/crime drama “Crown Heights.”ĭwight Brown is an NNPA News Wire film critic. More cinema verité, less music video wannabe. This very complex production needed to be simpler. While editor Joe Klotz (“Precious”) pulls together all the clips and footage in the most tangible ways possible, but still can’t hide the excessiveness of it all. Production designer Jeremy Reed, art director Gonzalo Cordoba and costume designer Mobolaji Dawodu (“Queen of Katwe”) have good taste. He has just enough time to show how magnetic he can be.ĭavid Delvin’s experience shooting videos for Zayn, Jennifer Lopez and Jay-Z have made him an ace cinematographer.

#MONSTER WALTER DEAN MYERS MOVIE FULL#

She gives her best performance since “Dreamgirls.” John David Washington’s portrayal of King’s partner is more a cameo than a full role. Jeffrey Wright and Jennifer Hudson as Steve’s parents underplay their roles as monied, urbane people stumbling into the ultimate nightmare. Jennifer Ehle (“Zero Dark Thirty”) makes the defense attorney sensitive yet realistic. That’s what I should have told them when they called me a monster.”Ĭourtesy of Netflix (l-r) Kevin Harrison, Jr., and Jennifer EhleĪSAP Rocky is so fluid as King you don’t see the acting. Those feelings of dread and insecurity are magnified when you consider the culpability he tries to evade. Harrison projects the inner conflict a bourgeoise adolescent would feel if he was dehumanized and shuffled into prison like a common crook. Mandler is far more effective at getting solid performances from his cast. Pity he lets that excessive style overpower the narrative.

His taste in composition, colors, movement, staging, etc. Initially, the cutaways to images and flashbacks are visually engaging-until they are not.

Even then, nothing beats a protagonist with one basic, immediate plight.ĭirector Anthony Mandler honed his skills on music videos (Jay-Z, Lenny Kravitz, Taylor Swift). All are worthy matters of concern and would be better served if they were more nuanced and less obvious. Instead, too much time is placed on social inequities, racial profiling, stereotypes, and the chasm between poor and middle-class Black life. The focus should be on Steve’s predicament. The naïve shutterbug becomes embroiled in subsequent arrests and a murder trial. Steve gets pulled into King’s life of crime, an experience that crescendos with a bodega robbery where the owner is shot and killed. He shoots photos of his surroundings and inhabitants.Ī thug named William King (ASAP Rocky) becomes his muse and a relationship ensues. Steve Hammond (Kelvin Harrison, “Waves”) is a 17-year-old, middle-class honor student, and a budding photographer at New York City’s prestigious Stuyvesant High School. That’s the core of the plotline for this film when it’s not obscured. Raised in Harlem, he was greatly affected by his urban upbringing and many of his stories reflected on inner-city life and the challenges he faced as a young Black man. He was an author who wrote over 100 children/YA books during his 45-year-old career. Wiley took their cues from the young adult novel “Monster,” which was written in 1999 by Walter Dean Myers. Screenwriters Janece Shaffer and Colen C. Good courtroom dramas keep audiences hooked into a defendant’s fight for justice. Courtesy of Netflix (l-r) Jeffrey Wright and Jennifer Hudson star in “Monster”

Monster walter dean myers movie