Fruitvale Station (2013) Review

I saw this film a second time, and felt so strongly about it that I have to revise my grade. This doesn't happen often. 4.5/5 is no longer the grade I feel this film deserves. The new grade is below.

5/5

Believe the hype, because this film is a masterpiece.
When I was shown a handheld tape of the real incident prior to the title card, I was floored. The theater sat in silence as the brutality unfolded. Some people let out a murmur, others a sob. I sat, stunned, in a kind of quiet loneliness in knowing that other people are capable of this monstrosity. I had no idea that by the time Coogler's version came around, I would be numb.
The acting is amazing. Amazing. Michael B. Jordan is some kind of revelation as Oscar Grant, and this performance will make him a star. It has to. His eyes go from sympathetic to enraged in a matter of seconds, but throughout it all he finds the humanity in Grant and for that he should be lauded as it connects the audience to the tragedy on an astronomical level. Melonie Diaz is fierce and loving as the girlfriend and mother to Oscar's child, walking the tightrope between love and hate with grace. Octavia Spencer, well, we know what she can do and here her talent is on full display as she portrays Oscar's mother who will not treat him as anything less than a man. Ariana Neal, as Oscar's daughter, has an innocence that has been forever seared into my mind as the true heartbreaking crux of this film. These people made me laugh, and cry, and shake. They are beyond words.
Ryan Coogler, (an alumnus of my soon-to-be alma mater, USC) is a cinematic tour-de-force that I predict will have a long and storied career. The first half, humanizing Grant, is necessary. You will not know why until the second half. Everyone knows the story going in, so how did Coogler make it not only suspenseful but surprising? How did he craft a thriller out of the story we were expecting, and one that he "gave away" himself with the actual handheld video in the beginning? He is talented, and he takes nothing for granted. I will say this: the second half of this film is filmmaking at its finest and, come years' end, will rival any other film for the title of most cinematically brilliant. When a deafening silence engulfs a theater upon its last frame crashing into a sea of black then you know the filmmaker has done his job. Coogler may be riding this wave into his first Oscar nomination for his first feature film.
When the film was over, and the darkness of the screen stayed still in what seemed like mourning for the events it had just played, I felt like I had been instantly marked for life with visuals I will never forget, and a message as powerful as any that exists. It was only then that I noticed my limbs quivering from the intensity, and I was able to acknowledge the power of cinema that still exists. Thankfully, people like Coogler and the rest of this cast and crew exist to remind us of it.