I'd bet a lot of white people look at this movie at first glance in a 'Blindside' type of way. This isn't a black movie or a white movie or a white guilt type of movie or exploitation type of movie.
The Inevitable defeat of Mister and Pete is just a good movie about a young boy with dreams, in a terrible spot. His mother is doped out, he lives in a rough neighborhood and there is no way for things to get better (even though he aspires to become an actor and make a better life for himself).
When the police crack down on the drug trade in his neighborhood, his mother is picked up. Mister and Pete (the young boy who was staying at his apartment because his mother was on a binge) spend the summer trying to survive and stay out of riverside orphanage.
A hallowing story about life--not black life or the ghetto, a story about life when things are bad and all that matters is surviving, the Inevitable defeat of Mister and Pete takes the viewer into a world they most likely never see.
This movie had a great message of survival and perseverance and hope and left me believing, if I just keep living and fighting, everything will work out.
The dialogue at times was a little forced, I felt, to convey the situation of helplessness--but I can live with that, as the script on a whole was pretty good. It's hard to convey so much with just dialogue and I thought the writer, Michael Starrbury did a pretty good job.
It was well Directed, but George Tillman Jr has proved he is an elite director imo.
Skylan Brooks (Mister) probably set himself up to be in countless movies in the future and I'd like to see him in a comedy next.
Jennifer Hudson, even though she didn't have that many lines was able to fulfill her role perfectly.
This was a good movie and definitely worth the time it took to watch it.
