Fruitvale Station

4 claps out of 5
I was blown away by the quality of acting in this movie, most notably Octavia Spencer and Micheal B. Jordan. The whole Oscar Grant saga was deeply ingrained in my life do to the fact it happened to people that lived in my neighborhood and at my local BART station. I was intimately aware, and followed every detail closely because I met his family and friends at various Justice for Osacar Grant rallies.
I feel like the film makers showed remarkable restraint in not painting Oscar as a hero but as a real person with real flaws but ultimately a very kind heart, and this focus on realism made the story much more powerful than it would of been had they portrayed Oscar as a hero, or an outright thug.
Having spent 95% of my life in the East Bay (Oakland, Hayward, where I was born and raised, and San Francisco) made me feel as I was reliving my life as I was intimately familiar with every single scene, from the Fruitvale BART station where I caught the southbound train (same platform Oscar was shot on) every morning, to Highland medical center where I received public healthcare for years.
I spent the better part of 6 years growing and supplying marijuana usually to
legal dispensaries in downtown Oakland and in that time I met hundreds of dealers, and buyers most of whom would be cast off as thugs or gangsters in movies and media and I was so refreshed to see "people like that" portrayed in an honest fashion. For many young black men in Oakland, and around the country probably, maintaing a tough demeanor and wearing baggy black jeans and white t-shirts is to project a tough demeanor to keep themselves safe from profiling and others who intend to hurt them. Without fail every "thug" I met where just as kind, smart, and compassionate as anyone else.
It was also nice to hear how well the film makers replicate the local dialect using words like "slappers", "hella", "hecka", "brah" and many others which will be very familiar to people from that region.
If you want to see a very well made movie that very accurately depicts the setting, dialect, characters and the events that led up to, what a lot of us consider the worst kind of racial profiling, see this movie.
Also if you've never been to Oakland and have pre-conceived notions about it, see this. This is as real as it gets and doesn't candy coat it or make it look worse than it is.