The Inspection (Prime Video)
Rating: * * *
There is an honesty and a cinematic subterfuge involved in the making of this not-routine film on a gay black man’s search to forge a sense of belonging in the American army. Honesty, because the protagonist’s journey is filled with moments of anguish and epiphany. And subterfuge , because the language of storytelling is mostly stereotypical: sensitive underdog joins the army, gets bullied,comes out stronger.
Richard Gere did dare to go there in An Officer & A Gentleman, and Lord knows how many underdog heroes since then. What makes Ellis(Jeremy Pope)’s journey memorable is his exceptional vulnerability.
Pope’s performance is a pitch perfect pastiche of pain and passion. As he conceals his sexual orientation during army training, we almost feel his rapid heartbeats and pounding pulse.The truth comes out in a shared shower episode where Ellis is humiliatingly and humblingly exposed. What follows is a spell of sadistic torture and ridicule that would break even the strongest.Which Ellis is not. As he tells a sympathetic fellow-recruit, “I have been looking after myself from the age of 16.”
Ellis is not new to homophobia. He has been a silent sufferer from childhood. Ellis’ mother Inez(Gabrielle Union, full of unexpressed unresolved hostility) cannot accept her son’s homosexuality.
“I will always love you as a son. But I cannot accept what you are,” she tells Ellis at the end of the harrowing journey from self-abnegation to a tentative peace with oneself.It is a story of immense self-actualization enlightenment told with a refreshing absence of smugness.
The protagonist’s journey never ceases to be relevant as he plods through acres of prescribed masculinity to arrive at a place where he can claim to be comfortable in his place.While Ellis’ rocky relationship with his immovable mother codifies the dramatic conflict , there is the other relationship with his sympathetic senior officer, a closeted gay man Rosales(Raul Castillo, electrifying) for whom Ellis feels a mix of revulsion, love, lust and gratitude.
It’s a complicated situation. Rendered in a language of empathy by writer-director Elegance Bratton who has faced all the conflicts trauma and debasement first-hand. Indeed, The Inspection conveys a pungent lived-in feeling. It doesn’t romanticize the protagonist’s ordeal. But it does make his journey seem more heroic than it must have been. It is never easy being a non-conformist especially in a patently masculine situation like the army.