REVIEW - FRUITVALE STATION

From my subjective perch, there's some preachifying I can indeed withstand. My political apathy does not extend to film, nor to certain societal issues. In an ambitious and rather grandiose move, Ryan Coogler presents the death of Oscar Grant on early New Year's Day, in the Bay Area, 2008, as a plea, not a diatribe, but still as an emblem of the social and racial issues nagging on the American public today. He reproaches the police officers whose hysterical behaviour led to Grant's death, but though their presence is integral to Coogler's central concern, it is not that concern in and of itself. His concern is what Grant's death represents for America; opening cell phone video footage throws a shade of tragic loss over the rest of the film, chronicling Oscar's last day alive, and closing images of mournful protests at the lenient sentencing of the offending officer throw shade on the rest of your day. If Coogler loses a sensation of something horrible and jolting portending, a curiosity coupled with an immediacy sacrificed for a more contemplative approach, he at least succeeds in what he attempts. Fruitvale Station is a better statement than work of art. The staged scenes between the bookending documentary footage are smartly done, with well-cast actors giving intelligent performances from a strong script. Until the action reaches its climactic location, Coogler has a tendency toward sentimentalising, and is always prepared to stress a dramatic point and ditch any kind of realistic bent. But that's the route he's chosen to take, and his dedication to it serves him well, as the sequences in and around the titular station are genuinely riveting.