Mon­ster

Orig­i­nal­ly debut­ing at Sun­dance in 2018, the first fea­ture from music video direc­tor Antho­ny Man­dler was adapt­ed from Wal­ter Dean Myers’ award-win­ning nov­el of the same name. It fol­lows 17-year-old Steve Har­mon (Kelvin Har­ri­son Jr), a well-liked stu­dent and aspir­ing film­mak­er from Harlem, New York, as he is put on tri­al for his alleged involve­ment in a bode­ga rob­bery that turned fatal.

Inno­cent until proven guilty is often not the case if you’re Black. The pros­e­cu­tion claim that Steve scoped out the loca­tion of the crime under instruc­tion of neigh­bour­hood friend William King (Rakim May­ers, aka A$AP Rocky). This series of events is cor­rob­o­rat­ed by the oth­er per­pe­tra­tors Osval­do Cruz (Jhar­rel Jerome) and Richard ​‘Bobo’ Evans (John David Wash­ing­ton) who have both tak­en plea deals in exchange for their testimonies.

The sto­ry unfolds across three time­frames – the jail, the court­room, and the lead up to the crime – flit­ting back and forth between them. Each nar­ra­tive thread has its own dis­tinct visu­al tex­ture. A queasy green­ish tint and unsteady hand­held cam­era sym­bol­ise Steve’s anguish in prison, bright white over­head light­ing and a mut­ed colour palette char­ac­terise the court­room, while his life before his arrest is shown con­trast­ing­ly warm hues.

The film’s title derives from the open­ing state­ment by the overzeal­ous pros­e­cut­ing attor­ney, Antho­ny Petro­cel­li (Paul Ben-Vic­tor). As he comes to the end of his mono­logue, pick­ing up pace, the fren­zied beats of a jazz drum­mer surge beneath his increas­ing­ly offen­sive accu­sa­tions. In a cli­mac­tic moment he dra­mat­i­cal­ly ges­tures towards King as the drums pick up speed. ​“He’s a mon­ster!” Then onto Steve, the drums roll in antic­i­pa­tion of Petrocelli’s cen­sure. ​“He’s a mon­ster!” The use of music is clear­ly intend­ed to high­light the weight of his words, but some of the emo­tion­al impact of this dehu­man­is­ing claim is lost in this unnec­es­sary melodrama.

Ulti­mate­ly the film rein­forces the very notions of moral­i­ty and pun­ish­ment it seeks to reject. Steve is told through­out that he doesn’t belong in prison, that he’s a good kid who doesn’t deserve to be there. Mean­while, King, Evans and Cruz are defined by their neg­a­tive asso­ci­a­tions. The lat­ter two’s com­plete lack of char­ac­ter­i­sa­tion beyond ​‘thug’ or ​‘gang mem­ber’ is galling, espe­cial­ly giv­en the fact that Cruz is only 15 years old.

It seems, then, that the real injus­tice of this sto­ry isn’t that Black peo­ple are mis­treat­ed by the racist legal sys­tem, but rather that Steve has been lumped in with the rest despite his mid­dle class fam­i­ly, good edu­ca­tion and cre­ative aspirations.

When we get caught up in ideas of inno­cence and guilt then the real issues are over­looked. No one should be treat­ed the way Steve and his peers were treat­ed, regard­less of whether they have com­mit­ted a crime or not, and regard­less of whether they mea­sure up to white ideals of respectabil­i­ty or not. It’s an impor­tant point the film fails to grasp.