Panther (1995)

Panther is a riveting two hours of revisionism that’s fired up to show us what really went down when the Black Panther Party rolled out in Oakland, California, during the late 1960s.

Director Mario Van Peebles and his father, Melvin (who adapted the script from his just-published novel of the same name), know that the white media power still paints the Panthers as armed black devils. The elder Van Peebles – who revolutionised black cinema with Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song in 1971 – has joined with his son to fight that power.

Their film commendably accentuates the positives from Panther breakfast programs to housing, health and employment agendas.

What isn’t commendable is minimising the negatives – from drug dealing to homicide –  that led to the party’s disintegration.

Panther uses propaganda to fight propaganda. It’s a film of selective truth. The script revolves around a fictional character named Judge (Kadeem Hardison), a Vietnam vet who gets swept into the movement to interact with Panther leaders Huey Newton (Marcus Chong) and Bobby Seale (Courtney B. Vance), as well as racist cops and FBI agents out to turn Judge into Judas.

Though strongly played by Hardison (formerly of TV’s A Different World), Judge is a melodramatic contrivance geared to give Panther an action-flick kick and an Everyman to root for.

Why would the film cheat on the potent facts to do the trite thing? It took Van Peebles and son years to scrape up the meagre budget ($9.5 million, compared with $35 million for the average Hollywood film). If Panther tanked, you could forget bringing more black history to the screen.

Mario had mined box-office gold with New Jack City (1991) – a kick-ass thriller about a crack kingpin – and crashed with Posse, a provocative foray into the role of black cowboys in the Old West. Lesson learned: Give them heroes to cheer, caricature enemies, jack up the jolts, simplify the issues, inflame emotions, spark controversy and hope some of the truth seeps through.

Some of it does.

Panther begins powerfully with a specific incident. A car hits and kills a young black boy riding his bike through an intersection in Oakland. When the community protests the lack of a traffic light, the police move in and start busting heads.

A need is seen for a group that will watchdog the police and rouse the people to action in self-defence.

These early scenes crackle with purpose as young members of the community – mostly teens and twentysomethings – band together as Panthers. The membership includes women, represented here by Alma (fiercely played by rap star Nefertiti), a sister who demands to do more than cook and rub her man’s tired feet.

The uniforms and drill sessions give the Panthers a military look. Bearing arms is a legal right until a threatened government changes the law.

Still, chapters spring up nationwide, turning the Panthers into a scare symbol and prompting FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover to label them public enemy #1.

Marcus Chong (son of comic Tommy) and Courtney B. Vance bring Newton and Seale to vivid life, and Anthony Griffith is hypnotic as Eldridge Cleaver, the reporter who becomes the Panther minister of information and leads the cathartic group chant of “Fuck Ronald Regan!”

The film ducks the issue of what divided these leaders and soured their dreams, opting for heat instead of light and turns the white Establishment into cardboard demons and the Panther core into demigods.

It also buys the hotly contested theory that Hoover extended his Panther hate campaign to a bargain with the Mob to flood black communities with drugs as a final solution similar to Hitler’s for the Jews.

In an attempt to counteract racist lies, Panther stoops to its own racial stereotyping – satisfying for the short term perhaps, but a poor answer for the new generation the Van Peebles team were so urgently trying to reach.

Though the whole truth may be a tall order for any movie, it’s still a necessary first step if you want to fight the power.

Judge
Kadeem Hardison
Tyrone
Bokeem Woodbine
Brimmer
Joe Don Baker
Bobby Seale
Courtney B. Vance
Cy
Tyrin Turner
Huey P. Newton
Marcus Chong
Eldridge Cleaver
Anthony Griffith
Rose
Bobby Brown
Dr Betty Shabazz
Angela Bassett
Alma
Nefertiti
Rodgers
James Russo
Rita
Jenifer Lewis
Yuck Mouth
Chris Rock
Pruitt
Roger Guenveur Smith
Tynan
Michael Wincott
J. Edgar Hoover
Richard Dysart
Dorsett
M. Emmet Walsh
Little Bobby Hutton
Wesley Jonathan
Boy on Bike
Kahlil Nelson
Bernadette
Thyais Walsh
Sabu
Anthony Johnson
Reverend Slocum
Dick Gregory
Jamal
Kool Moe Dee
Gene McKinney
Lahmard J. Tate
Sergeant Schreck
William Fuller
Old Jail Bird
Melvin Van Peebles
Emory Douglas
Brent Schaefer
Lombard
Mark Curry
Mr Yang
Ralph Ahn
Denzil Dowell
Jeffrey Carr
George
Steven Carl White
Sheriff
Charles Cooper
Governor Reagan
Jay Koch
Hoover’s Aide
Beau Windham
Avakian
James LeGros
Kathleen Cleaver
Tracey Costello
Bakar
Aklam
Mrs Dowell
Ann Weldon
Matty
Roberto Santana
Charles Garry
Robert Culp
Stokely Carmichael
Mario Van Peebles

Director
Mario Van Peebles