Rented (via iTunes) a flick with either great or terrible timing called Body Cam. It’s about police violence during a time of social unrest… only with a little supernatural peppered in.
The flick follows a recently reinstated cop played by Mary J. Blige who investigates a crime scene involving a fellow officer. It’s a mysterious set of circumstances and the dash cam footage shows something weird and mysterious happened to her fellow officer… but when other cops show up to help investigate, the footage is mysterious blank. She’s the only one who has – and is apparently allowed – to see what’s going on and nobody believes her.
This is a murder mystery mixed with themes of police brutality and the supernatural. It seems the crooked cops have stumbled upon a ghost story. I think the mixing of genres is intriguing, though I can also imagine some might find it poorly timed and inconsiderate given real-world events. Maybe.
But that’s kind of beside the point of a review of what the movie is. And the movie is… well.. it’s just not very good. Like I said, I think it’s an interesting premise but the film constantly fumbles the ball and doesn’t deliver good scares or intriguing scenarios. I was, frankly, very very bored watching the flick no matter how hard it tries to be spooky by turning off the lights and thinking that’s enough mood and atmosphere to carry the flick.
So this is a skip. There’s much better scary movies out there and much better movies that tackle the plight of African Americans and the cops. Maybe a combination of the two could work and be a good way to deliver social messaging on the sly… but we’ll have to wait for the next attempt.
Score: 65