Fruitvale Station

 Synopsis: The fact-based story of Oscar Grant, a 22-year old Afro-American who was shot while in police custody during the early morning hours of New Year's Day 2009.

Whilst it opens with a minute of the actual mobile phone footage of the events which occurred at the Fruitvale Station stop of San Francisco’s BART line, for most of its running time director and writer Ryan Coogler’s debut feature is a low key affair, a fly-on-the-wall account of day in the life of a decent young black guy (Michael B. Jordan) with a girlfriend(Melonie Diaz) and four year-old daughter. He’s on parole for drug dealing and looking for a job but toying with the idea of selling some grass in order to pay the bills. It's a tough day and after dropping in to a family birthday party for his mother (Octavia Spencer) he, Sophina and his friends head into San Francisco to see the New Year’s fireworks. But after a fight erupts on the train Oscar find himself under arrest and at the mercy of some very aggressive white police officers.

The strength of Fruitvale Station is in the contrast between the mundanity of Oscar’s day and its tragic end, a contrast that hits home like a punch to the solar plexus. In the lead roles, Jordan, Diaz and Spencer are all effective in winning our sympathies and few audiences will not feel their respective pains.

Although one cannot help but feel that Oscar has been made rather more presentable for the big screen than he would have been in real life his story brings sharply into focus the message that black-white relations in America today are still appalling and that injustice remains a daily reality for many black Americans.

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