Queen & Slim

Good movie!

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Most won't get it. Most won't watch it (yet still manage to give 1-star reviews). It's okay because it's not made for the majority who could learn a lot were it not for willful ignorance. This is not for closed-minded people.

The film was a beautiful yet striking journey and though all of our favorite love stories have definite endings, this one tied two purposes together. The director did a phenomenal job and everyone involved for that matter. This is a film I'm rooting for. Hope it stays in theaters longer than 2 weeks.

Queen & Slim I saw this at the unlimited secret screening. Ultimately this movie was so fatally flawed in so many aspects that it just left a nasty taste in the mouth. What was good There was strong and convincing acting from the two main leads, Daniel Kaluuya and Jodie Turner-Smith however she was so cold, rude and manipulative for us to believe we had a Romeo and Juliet moment. I would have opened the car door and thrown her out. The road trip element kept us interested and was reminiscent of Thelma and Louise in its haphazardness. The music was good. What was totally hashed The plot - The nasty tinder date led to being stopped by the police, they had swerved in the car, and this led the policeman, quite rightly believing he was driving under the influence of drink and/or drugs. I have been stopped and I complied to the letter the instructions the policeman gave me. Why would you antagonise/backchat/sass a man with a gun. We had an almost identical scene in The Hate U Give, and it is just an incoherent plot. The choices - as a lawyer she knew with the camera footage she had a good chance of arguing her case in court, she knew she could never run so why did she try. Quite ridiculous! The tone - much of the plot was comedic and was not specifically a issue led race movie, but towards the end it became inferred the whole movie was about race, well it wasn't as a black cop was gunned down as well. It really was neither fish nor fowl. There was a good deal of stylistic elements that distracted from the drama for example the cutting between the sex scene and the protest march. Lastly the ending was quite moronic they clearly were unarmed and so would not have been gunned down, this was no Bonnie & Clyde or Butch Cassidy. Lastly I have had a gutful of issue led movies that demonise men, white people, politicians, policemen, equality, social security etc. Hollywood is just not best placed to contrive a drama to raise these issues as it is all so unbalanced.

First Hit: This film failed to deliver on its potential. The potential in this film is to tell the story about how people of color are targeted for police harassment and random shootings. It failed to make this the central and poignant topic and the primary focus of the movie. Instead, it took a compelling beginning and turned it into a story about two people searching for someone who'll love them the way they want to be loved. That's not to say that a love story based on a horrible event isn't unusual, but with our country's problems of race, it seemed like this story had the potential to tell us something about where we've gone wrong. Instead, it became the side story. Slim (Daniel Kaluuya) and Queen (Jodie Turner-Smith) meet on a Tinder date. Their differences are immediately evident as she's well dressed, proper in manners, slow to share personal stuff, and an attorney. He's dressed down more, a bit lazy in table manners, open, and is very close with his family. The conversation at the table is a kind jab and parry type and with a sense of respect. Giving her a ride home, she steals his phone and, in an attempt, to grab it back, Slim yanks the steering wheel and the car swerves. They are stopped by a policeman who is belligerent and pushy in his actions and requests towards Slim. As a lawyer, Queen takes umbrage to the policeman's behavior and talks back to him. She tells him that she's an attorney, and he has no right to be doing what he's doing to Slim. Slim, on the other hand, is compliant and even lets the officer search his trunk. Queen points out that the cop has no cause to do this, a scuffle ignites, the policeman draws his gun, fires, and hits Queen in the leg. Slim knocks the policeman down, the weapon falls loose and Slim picks it up and shoots the officer in the head. The officer dies, and Queen convinces Slim to make a run for it. That's the premise. The rest of the film is about how the black community looks up to these outlaws and their admiration for them standing up to the law. In support, many aid them in escaping the manhunt. They meet up with people who help them along the way and end up finding a connection to fly them out of Florida and on to Cuba where they will live for the rest of their lives. That's the plan. The edge created by the opening scenes is lost as the film drifts off into a love story with their deed becoming a side story and only there to keep them running - together. Kaluuya was alright in this role. It seemed to me that the lost direction in this story took away several possibilities. Turner-Smith was excellent as Queen. Again, the film's story veered away from what could have been a powerful statement. Bokeem Woodbine, as Queen's Uncle Earl, was terrific. His arguments with his live-in girlfriends were amusing. Lena Waithe wrote this mediocre screenplay that ended up focusing on being a love story and not about what brought these two together. Melina Matsoukas did an adequate job of presenting this story and many of the sets and scenes (like hiding under the floor) worked really well. Overall: This film failed to capture my attention to a subject that has been too much part of the news.

"Queen & Slim" is I think the perfect example of a movie that's greater than the sum of its parts. There are many individual moments in the film that don't hold up under scrutiny. But when experienced as a whole, the film exerts a kind of poetic power. It's equal parts sorrow and rage at the treatment of African Americans in the United States, and having watched it after the George Floyd murder (even though the film came out before it), it's impossible not to understand the actions and motivations of the Bonnie and Clyde couple at the film's center. It's certainly overheated and histrionic at times, but these are overheated and histrionic moments we're experiencing in our country right now, and I don't want movies, especially movies about race, to play it safe. I want them to be angry, to scream and shout and swear, to have muscle and teeth, and so the energy blazing off the screen from this movie felt right for the moment. My favorite scene is the one where Slim comments on how beautiful the countryside of rural America is as they're driving through it, and Queen, who casually glances at a prison work gang in a field made up of all black men that could easily pass for a group of field slaves from the Civil War-era South, replies, "Is it?" Grade: A-

The movie is an emotional journey. The character are humanized. For a person of color, you can easily envision yourself in their shoes. The film does have an artistic quality to it which further enhances the movie. The story is good. I wish the film spent a little more time on some of the secondary characters. However, I also understand it was not their story. The film is long. A few scenes could have been cut. Nevertheless, it is a good film and worth seeing. Ignore all the negative views who are trying to bomb the reviews just because the movie stars black actors.

I saw Queen and Slim! I am emotional and very touched from this movie. It's one of the best films this year. Incredible script written by Lena Waithe ! The way Melina Matsoukas put wisely the puzzles together to tell this story with her debut film! She is incredible storyteller! But also the movie is brilliant because of the great actors and their magnificent performances! Daniel Kaluuya is so deep with his performance you can feel everything through his eyes! Jodie Turner-Smith had an incredible strong chemistry with Daniel and she is captivating you! The soundtrack, cinematography, production was perfect ! It's a 10 stars masterpiece that it stays with you after the movie. Thank you for sharing this story out today! We need it!

The opening sequence is mind bogglingly great. It's also mostly shown in the trailer. After that, the movie doesn't know what it wants to do. A plethora of confused dialogue coupled with amazing performances by the two leads make for a tolerable hour of entertainment. It didn't help that Queen's character was inherently unlikeable. As a statement, the movie almost failed to live up to it's promise, until in a shockingly predictable moment, it shook me. It legitimately made me have a physical reaction to the scene on screen.