PANTHER
A film review by Scott Renshaw
Copyright 1995 Scott Renshaw
Starring: Kadeem Hardison, Bokeem Woodbine, Marcus Chong, Courtney B. Vance, Joe Don Baker, Richard Dysart, M. Emmett Walsh. Screenplay: Melvin Van Peebles. Director: Mario Van Peebles. Reviewed by Scott Renshaw.
I have often said that the first responsibility of a historically based film is not necessarily to be good history, but to be good drama. Documented facts can sometimes make for a compelling story on their own, but usually a bit of creative license is not merely acceptable, it's required. So how can I say that out of one side of my mouth, while with the other I criticize PANTHER for being a mediocre account of the rise of the Black Panther Party? Because by painting the characters in a far too positive light, the filmmakers have robbed the characters of their humanity, and everything that might make them interesting. While there are a number of powerful images, PANTHER is a one-note drama which misses the opportunity to include some internal conflict.
PANTHER opens in 1967, with the formation of the Black Panther Party in Oakland by Bobby Seale (Courtney B. Vance) and Huey Newton (Marcus Chong). With white police officers brutalizing their neighborhoods with impunity, Seale and Newton begin recruiting black youths to help defend the community. Among those they attempt to recruit is Judge (Kadeem Hardison), a Vietnam vet and college student unsure about whether to work for change inside or outside the system. Loudly proclaiming their Constitutional rights, the Black Panthers arm themselves and begin policing the police. This development doesn't sit at all well with local law enforcement, which attempts to turn Judge into an informant, or with FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover (Richard Dysart), whose plans for eliminating the Panthers are far more extreme.
Mario Van Peebles is developing into a director with a real flair for powerful visuals, and PANTHER is no exception. His use of documentary footage and different film stocks has a bit of Oliver Stone theatricality, but without the wretched excess. The early scenes of the Panthers' emergence as a force have a tense energy. In one such scene, a group of armed Panthers stop a pair of police officers from beating a black man, resulting in a showdown witnessed by hundreds of blacks awed by the sight of black men standing up to the white establishment and getting away with it. It is a vivid example of why the Black Panthers' message was so widely embraced, and why they became so powerful so quickly.
What Van Peebles is unable to do is provide any real sense of who these men were, and the reason is one of intent. Both screenwriter Melvin and director Mario are not particularly interested in creating characters, it seems; they want to create idols. Bobby Seale is presented as a serene sort of philosopher- king, relegated to the background in favor of the more vocal Huey Newton. But even Newton becomes little more than a figurehead, a mouthpiece for a message rather than a fully-realized man. Kadeem Hardison's Judge is the narrator of the story, and for a while it appears that his character will provide a degree of ambiguity as he struggles with whether or not to join the Panthers. That ambiguity is short-lived, as he becomes a dedicated soldier with no doubts as soon as he puts on the black beret. There is a single scene of Eldridge Cleaver (well-played by Anthony Griffith) breaking ranks to take more forceful action, but with that exception the Black Panthers in PANTHER come off as one collective consciousness.
The absence of any real internal conflict makes PANTHER become extremely derivative. The first couple of times, the sight of Huey Newton forcing an arrogant cop to back down (including once while protecting Malcolm X's widow Betty Shabazz, played by Angela Bassett reprising her role from MALCOLM X) is exciting. The tenth or eleventh time, it has long since lost its sting. There are just too many scenes of sneering brutality which become interchangeable in a way I'm sure the Van Peebles' did not want. The addition of a government/mafia conspiracy to flood the black community with cheap drugs only emphasizes the fact that this is a story entirely about looking outward. The Black Panther story is an important part of an important time, but it could have had real power if PANTHER had been more about the men behind the movement and less an exercise in hero worship.
On the Renshaw scale of 0 to 10 Black Panthers: 5.
-- Scott Renshaw Stanford University Office of the General Counsel
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