Indie Gems: Blindspotting

Can your brain unsee this?

When we meet Collin (Daveed Diggs) he's coming off a prison sentence and is being put on probation. We catch up with him in his final three days of it, where he's trying his hardest to lay low. His short tempered friend, Miles (Rafael Casal) is making this difficult. On top of that, he witnesses a police officer shooting an unarmed black man and it keeps coming back to haunt him.

I remember when I first saw trailers for this, I wasn't sure if I would rush out to see it. But after hearing so many positive reviews, I bumped it to the top of my Netflix queue as soon as it came available. This film was nothing like I was expecting. I didn't realize they would fuse so much humor and poetry into this. Director Carlos López Estrada has a lot of ideas. Sometimes that effects the tone, is this a surreal comedy? A racial politics drama? A music video? It's all of those things. It's a little messy but there's never a part where I went "this really doesn't work."

Daveed Diggs is extraordinary and gives one of the best performances this year. I was so worried for Collin throughout. He's in a constant state of disadvantage and there was one particular scene where I held my breath throughout. Casal is also wonderful here. It could be easy to hate Miles, he's volatile and a bit unaware of his privilege despite feeling like a victim of it, but Casal humanizes him. They could've gone the typical annoying sidekick/best friend trope route, but they don't. Everything about Collin and Miles' relationship is important.

Grade: A-

Watched on: Netflix DVD

Memorable Quote: "You monsters got me feeling like a monster in my own town." - Collin (Daveed Diggs)