When Grant's death hit the news, what much of the public saw was a convicted drug dealer who had been released from prison three months before his death. Then it jumps backwards one day to fill in the blanks of an average brother, to illustrate the mundane moments with family, friends and strangers that constitute real life. That's the first scene of the film, using real video shot by bystanders. Numerous bystanders captured the scene on video. Grant is being held face down on the platform, unarmed and struggling, when the officer shoots him once in the back. The police are abusive Grant and friends respond with belligerence. Police detained Grant and his friends on the platform of the Fruitvale station. In the film, a fight starts on the train when Grant encounters an enemy from prison. Grant was 22 years old in the early hours of New Year's Day, returning home to Oakland with his girl and other friends. You live that type of lifestyle, you get what you deserve. "He was just a criminal, a thug, a drug dealer, and he deserved what he got. "Everything he had ever done wrong in his life was magnified," Coogler said. "Everyone either made Oscar out to be a saint, depending on whatever their political agenda was, and on the other side they made him out to be this villain," Coogler said in an interview. Which raises the question: If Grant was a real person, what about all these other young black males rendered as cardboard cutouts by our merciless culture? What other humanity are we missing? He's a drug dealer who takes time to make his bed in the morning, a hardened convict and a mama's boy - a thuggish angel.īy the time the credits roll, Oscar Grant has become one of the rarest artifacts in American culture: a three-dimensional portrait of a young black male - a human being. He wants to hold down a legal job - and he can't make it to work on time. He loves his girlfriend - and he cheats on her. Jordan (beware of plot spoilers ahead) Grant is a great father - and a convicted felon. But the way writer/director Ryan Coogler delivers this message is extraordinary.Īs portrayed by Michael B. It's a common message, often heard in film and life in general. This is the central message of "Fruitvale Station," a film dramatizing the real-life case of the young unarmed black man shot in the back by a white police officer in 2009.
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