'Armageddon Time' Review: Queensset Drama Is Brutally Honest
Control In the year 1980, an accident takes two young friends - one white and the other black - on very different paths.
Starring Anthony Hopkins, Banks Ripetta , Jaylen Webb
Rated R (Language, Mature Themes)
Duration 1:55
Nearby KU Theater
Bottom Line writer and director James Gray tells a personal story of class, race and survival.
Who wants to see a movie about white privilege told from the point of view of a white director? James Gray may face bad reviews with "Armageddon Time," a drama based on an incident from his childhood. However, as with autobiographical films, it has a strange, brutal honesty that makes you sympathize with its hapless protagonist without letting him down.
It's 1980, the place is Queens, and white guys like Paul Graf (Michael Banks Repetta) are fascinated by black culture in the form of hip-hop and rap. (The clash punk rock tune that inspired the film's title is also a cover of a reggae song by black Jamaican Willie Williams.) Paul, a fifth-grader at the local public school, knows they mean mixed, not black and white, but then again, he's Jewish. Isn't he a foreigner?
Paul likes Johnny (Jaylene Webb), a black boy with a cheerful personality and a friendly smile. Johnny introduced Paul to hip-hop (The Sugarhill Gang's "Rapper's Delight"), but also to his first venue. Children's lives are ruined if they are caught smoking.
Paul is not a rich boy. His father, Irving, is a stubborn plumber (played by a funny but creepy Jeremy Strong). His mother Esther (a very young Anne Hathaway) lives at home. But Esther's father Aaron (the excellent Anthony Hopkins) is a successful immigrant and offers to pay for Paul's education at Forest Manor, a posh private school. "You'll be fine honey," Aaron tells her. Johnny runs away and sometimes sleeps at Paul's backyard club.
Talking about Donald Trump's family - his father Fred (John Diehl) and sister Marian (Jessica Chastain) - at Forest Manor is a little confusing, but since it's at Kew-Forest School, Gray visited. ; The director said he remembers both Trumps were there. (The future president was also a student there.) Effective, if clumsy, examples of a kind of blind deception serve.
What eventually happens to Paul and John should not be spoiled here; Suffice it to say that at a crucial moment, Paul gets a lifeline and takes it. Gray finds no excuses during Armageddon and pointing fingers would be too selfish. After all, you will too.
