TV Review - Small Axe: Red, White and Blue

This is the third installment in the series by Steve McQueen (Widows and 12 Years a Slave). It's the third of five total. These films air like TV episodes on Sundays on BBC One in the UK. All the films take place in the past, either the 1960's, 70's and 80's, and they all focus on the West Indian or Afro-Caribbean community of London, England. Most of McQueen's series is docudrama where he's actually dramatizing real-life events or historical stories that have been well-documented. This one is about the real-life Leroy Logan who was a well-known Black police officer because he was one of the only ones to serve, when he first joined in 1983. Logan is credited with being the founding member of the Black Police Association or BPA within the London Metropolitan Police. As the chairman for BPA, he was involved with two high-profile cases. One was in 1993 and the other in 2000. Yet, this film depicts none of those cases or his founding of the BPA. As best I can tell, this film only depicts a few months and possibly a year in this man's life, surrounding the time he first joined the police in 1983. We get a little bit leading up to his joining the force and a little bit of his time as a cop, but that's it. As such, it feels incomplete as a story of this man and why he was important.

Therefore, one has to ask what was the point of McQueen making this film. The point would seem to be to highlight the distrust that existed and still exists today between the police and the Black community. He wanted to do so particularly with regard to the Black community in London, the Afro-Caribbean community in England, which many haven't seen in the United States. However, in the United States, many films have been done about the distrust and even the violent relationship between the police and the Black community. Arguably, every film about Black people that has dealt with racism has included that distrusting and often violent relationship with the police. From Selma (2014) and Straight Outta Compton (2015) to Loving (2016) and If Beale Street Could Talk (2018), so many films have depicted that distrustful and even violent relationship between the police and Black people. McQueen could argue that he has the unique angle of depicting a Black man's experiences in the racist police force or among racist white cops, but he's even a bit late to that party.

John Boyega (Star Wars: The Force Awakens and Pacific Rim: Uprising) stars as Leroy Logan, a man who comes from a Jamaican family. Yet, he was one of the first to go to college and get a good education. In the early 80's, he works as a scientist, specifically a lab technician, in the field of forensics, so he's loosely connected to the police already. However, when his father is attacked in an incident that was more than just excessive force but a naked display of sheer police harassment and violence, Leroy decides to join the police force and change it from within.

This is all well and good, but he's never exactly clear as to how he plans to do that. For starters, it just seems as if he wants to be the best or the most outstanding police cadet or recruit that has ever been, which he accomplishes. He passes and excels in all the tests and exercises that he has to take while at the police academy. He is the best at all of his drills and training. That of course gets him through the door. He's then tasked to help try to recruit other Black cops, which if he hadn't joined, they would be doing any how. The question is what is Leroy bringing? Again, he keeps saying he wants to reform the police from within, but how?

Presumably, his reform comes in how he relates to the public while in uniform. There are scenes where he attempts to talk to people in the community while in uniform. Yet, it doesn't go well. People don't speak to him or else they just scatter and get away from him. We also see Leroy experience racism from within the police force. People put racist slurs on his locker and they don't back him up when he's out in the street, pursuing a dangerous suspect for example. He gets frustrated and pushed to the point of giving up. We don't see him make any head way or progress in his stated goals. The film then just ends with no resolution in that regard.

Steve Toussaint (Pine Gap and Doctors) co-stars as Ken Logan, the father to Leroy. He seems to work as a truck driver. His children seem to be all adults at this point. After he's attacked by the police, he becomes strongly against his son joining the police force. This causes tension between him and his son to the point that he kicks his son out the house. Even though the film doesn't resolve what are Leroy's goals about the police within this narrative, there is a resolution of sorts between Ken and Leroy, between father and son, but it doesn't feel as dramatically powerful as it could have been. That conflict in this film goes out with a whimper instead of a bang.

It's funny because when it comes to Boyega being in a film about the police's relationship with Black people, this isn't his first stab. Boyega was in Kathryn Bigelow's Detroit (2017). That film was a depiction and examination of a pressure cooker situation and how even the most well-meaning law enforcement officer can go along with horror directed at Black people. Boyega's character in that 2017 film wasn't specifically a cop but instead a security guard. His character here is a cop, but I feel like it had even less to say about cops and the Black community than Bigelow did. There have also been recent films like Monsters and Men (2018), Spike Lee's BlackKklansman (2018) and Ladj Ly's Les Misérables (2020) that had more to say about the relationship between cops and the Black community than this film as well.

Rated TV-MA.
Running Time: 1 hr. and 20 mins.

Available on Amazon Prime.