THE RECKONING (BODYCAM)

  

The killing of African Americans in police custody wasn't just a hot topic during the recent 2020 Presidential Election.

It has loomed very large in American cinema in recent times, with movies like Ryan Coogler's 'Fruitvale Station,' George Tillman Jr's 'The Hate U Give' and Melina Matsoukas' 'Queen and Slim'.

All of these have taken a pretty straight look at the problem of institutional racism in the police.

However Malik Vitthal has decided to take another approach in 'Body Cam' - a fusion of a police procedural drama with supernatural horror.

'Body Cam' focuses mostly on Louisiana police officers on the beat, coming to terms with the slaying of one of their colleagues.

Mary J Blige plays Officer Renée Lomito-Smith, an officer grieving the loss of her young son, who is returning for duty after exploding with rage during an altercation with a citizen.

Her colleagues are also on edge after Ian Casselberry's Officer Kevin Ganning is found  dead.

Ganning dies after stopping a van on a rainy night containing Anika Noni Rose's clearly terrified, hooded lady.

Dashboard footage is sketchy but it appears to show Ganning being catapulted through the air before his death.

Renée is assigned a rookie partner, Nat Wolff's Officer Danny Holledge by David Zeyas' Sergeant Keeper who offers a sympathetic ear to her as she returns to duty.

It is Renée and Danny who initially come across Ganning's corpse and as the cops scour the city for his killer, the duo are increasingly disturbed by supernatural goings on.

As they piece together who the mystery woman in the van is, their odyssey takes them to her house and also a convenience store where more colleagues die in strange circumstances.

And as the horror unfolds, an even more uncomfortable truth emerges about the mounting death toll.

Vitthal and his screenwriters Nicholas McCarthy and Richmond Riedel have hit upon a smart way to address one of the keys challenges facing US cities - racism in the police. 

But while the underlying premise is intriguing, the way it is executed is frustrating.

The director and his writers squander chances to flesh out their story.

Renée's back story is disappointingly underdeveloped for something that is supposedly relevant.

Of course, she is assigned a rookie - a police procedural cliché.

And with its limited budget, Vitthal seems more focused on long drawn out, frankly boring moments where Renée, Danny and their fellow officers run about in the dark with flashlights, jump cuts and occasional blasts of terrifying music.

In 'Mudbound,' Blige proved she could act and she does a pretty decent job here in the anchor role.

But the cast are swimming against the tide of a poorly developed script.

Wolff, Zayas, David Warshofsky, Demetrous Grose, Lara Grice and Casselberry seem to sleepwalk their way through the inevitable carnage.

Anika Noni Rose spends her entire time mumbling and looking terrified.

There's a good horror story to be crafted out of the racial nightmare that has unfolded in the US and not just during Donald Trump's Presidency.

But this half baked film simply isn't up to it.

All the slick visuals in the world and horror tricks can't mask the deficiencies of a poorly developed script.

And that's a damn shame.

('Body Cam' was released digitally in the UK and Ireland on May 22, 2020)