The Hate U Give Movie Review

The Hate U Give (2018)

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Written by: Audrey Wells (screenplay by), Angie Thomas (based upon the novel by)
Directed by: George Tillman Jr.
Starring: Amandla Stenberg, Regina Hall, Russell Hornsby, Anthony Mackie, Issa Rae, Common, K.J. Apa
Rated: PG-13
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Plot
Starr witnesses the fatal shooting of her childhood best friend Khalil by a police officer. Facing pressure from all sides of the community, Starr must find her voice and stand up for what's right.

Verdict
A heavy topics that depicts a police officer shooting an unnamed black man. The movie does a great job of showing the conflicted feelings people have. This movie is less about entertainment and more about making a point. It's a powerful movie, and Stenberg does a great job in the role. There's a lot of nuance to the movie and it generates a lot of discussion.
Watch it.

Review
At the core of this movie is Starr. She sees her friend shot by a police officer over a traffic stop.
Before that we see how afraid Starr is of the police when pulled over. That alone is telling. While the officer is portrayed as a bit aggressive, the victim, Khalil, isn't completely cooperative. That doesn't justify the outcome. That's one of the points being made. Starr shouldn't have to be that afraid, and there is a double standard.

Khalil has a right to complain. He was pulled over for being black. He gets no room to complain about that, where as a white person would have that space. This shows many sides of Black Live Matters and the repercussions of what happens when a cop shoots a black man. The movie covers a lot of issues and topics surprisingly well.

Starr and Khalil

The movie emphasizes the double standard when a police officer that happens to be Starr's uncle states he gives white people more leeway and that he would pull his gun quicker on a black person.

Starr wrestles with what to do. Does she testify? This is compounded in a couple of ways, the least of which isn't that her testimony will probably do no good anyway. Her friends don't understand.

This even delves into code switching. Starr attends a predominantly white school. It's a different culture and they don't understand what Starr's neighborhood is like. While white people come off as a bit ignorant, that's not completely wrong, especially at this affluent school. When one of Starr's friends retorts that "Blue lives matters.", Starr is upset. Khalil was the victim. The police officer created the situation.


These issues are framed through Starr's perspective and she doesn't understand the double standard.  Part of it is that one instance isn't the issue. That situation isn't an outlier. Starr was taught and then witnesses that the color of your skin can be crime enough.

There is a through-line of violence. It escalates, and violence begets violence. Starr's neighborhood stages a protest that gets out of hand, but the protest isn't just about Khalil's death. It's about systemic racism and how they feel ignored time and again.