Red, White and Blue reminded me of a mock paper I did for my English language exams at school in the 1980s. It was about the power of advertising.
It was a police recruitment advert in a newspaper. There were pictures of two London policemen, both looked alike apart from one was white and the other was black. The headline said 'Brothers in Law.'
The campaign was in response to The Scarman Report after the inner city riots of the early 1980s. The government wanted more black and asian bobbies.
It was a memorable advert, I still remember it. Good public relations but that is all it was.
The Metropolitan Police of London did not change its attitudes on race or their ethnic minority colleagues. The Macpherson Report of 1999 labelled them as institutionally racist and wanted more ethnic minority recruits. Targets were set and were not met.
Over 20 years after Macpherson, I doubt it has got much better. Stop and search still disproportionately affects minority groups in London.
This drama looks to be set in the early 1980s. Leroy Logan (John Boyega) is a graduate who joins the police hoping he can make a difference. He thinks he can be a bridge between different communities. This is after his father is needlessly beaten to a pulp by some policemen.
Leroy aces his training but reality hits home when he joins a police station. He encounters indifference at best and racism at worse. One Asian officer has had enough. Leroy also considers his future,
There is an underlying pessimism to Red, White and Blue. Steve McQueen knows there is no meeting at half way. Any steps the police make is only for PR purposes.
There is a good performance from Boyega but it does finish abruptly. It's like McQueen wanted to leave a questioning hanging up in the air.
Maybe McQueen wishes to revisit Leroy some time later in the future.
