Educational Media Reviews Online

Filmed in 1996 by a French documentarian, this absorbing production follows two white detectives as they attempt to solve the homicide of a 15-year-old Black teenager named Shafeeq Murrell.

Shafeeq is, in the words of everyone involved, an innocent victim of the prevailing violence that has descended on African American communities across the United States as gang and drug wars fueled escalating violence. He was, as people in the neighborhood say, "at the wrong place, at the wrong time." Although filmed in the 1990s, conditions in many urban areas have remained unchanged and, in some cases, worsened. Thus, the documentary is as relevant today as it was then.

The film is outstanding as a police procedural. The cinema verité style has a noirish element to it. The filmmakers patiently follow the detectives as they doggedly return to the same witnesses, hoping to use threats, incentives, and appeals for justice to get the information they need to close the case. They encounter resistance from a community that is frightened of reprisals, believes the police can do little or nothing, and believes the entire system is racist and corrupt. It is the element of racism, unspoken but prevalent, that makes this film more than just another episode detailing a crime and its solution.

Shafeeq's father claims that had his son been white, the crime would have been solved immediately. The white detective rejects this but the viewer is left to consider the implications. What is the distinction between life Black and White? Indeed, South Philadelphia emerges as more than a background; the neighborhoods become part a character in the story. Poverty is apparent, and economic opportunity seems to be found only in the underground economy of drug dealing and protecting your turf. The shooters, we find, are lost souls, bereft of family and raised on the streets—victims of a cycle of violence and loss. Ultimately, the film is a subtle indictment of the system of structural racism that has allowed this cycle to develop and continue.

The film is easy to follow, the audio and video impeccable, and the filmmaker restrained, allowing the the story to slowly unfold. Adult audiences interested in structural racism, criminal justice, and recent American history will find this excellent social commentary a rewarding means to learn more.

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