The Inspection - Movie Review

Critics Score - 7 of 10

General Audience Score - 7 of 10

Everyone loves an inspirational war story, the beaten down soldier or battalion left for dead that manages to pull off a victory against seemingly insurmountable odds. It’s a bit of a generic premise and has many common tropes that movies and shows can fall into, but who doesn’t love a good underdog story? Especially when the story is based on real people or events. Coming into theatres just before thanksgiving this year is the new film The Inspection, starring Jeremy Pope who plays a young, gay man who decides to join the Marine Corps. The film is based on the true story of the writer/director Elegance Bratton and his journey of change, self-discovery, defying the odds and taking charge of one’s lot in life. Unfortunately, the film doesn’t bring us any unconventional storytelling and it may have an ending you can see coming a mile away. But at just over an hour and a half, it does a good job at keeping up a brisk pace and doesn’t spend time floundering in unnecessary subplots and irrelevant details. Upon my inspection, The Inspection may not be among the best films of the year, but it’s a good story that’s turned into an inspirational movie that most critics and general audiences can find enjoyment in.

SYNOPSIS - This trip into the depths of the harsh military training hell commences in New Jersey, it’s 2006 according to the on screen text and we see a young, bushy haired, scraggly bearded black man, Ellis French (Jeremy Pope), as he struggles to eke his way through life. Ellis is in his mid-twenties, and as we witness through the first few sequences, he is accustomed to sleeping in halfway homes and jumping the turnstiles to ride around on the subways in his red hoodie and blue backpack. Despite his meager living, he procures a small bouquet of red flowers and goes to visit his mother. Upon arriving at his mother Inez’s (Gabrielle Union) apartment, he’s greeted rather coldly, as she is less than excited to see him, she opens the door and greets him by asking him if he’s in trouble. He explains he needs to get his birth certificate because he wants to be a marine, his mother remains unimpressed but eventually retrieves the document and gives it to him, but not before repeatedly expressing her disappointment. “If you don’t come back the son I gave birth to, consider this certificate void.”

The film wastes no time, before long he’s cleaned himself up a bit, headed off to boot camp and after some introductory verbal abuse, he opts for the traditional buzz cut the new recruits sport. The person in charge of training the new batch of prospects is Laws (Bokeem Woodbine), who’s character can be summed up in one of the phrases he tells another marine, “Our job is not to make marines, it’s to make monsters.” It should be noted that this cast is solid all around, Woodbine and Union do some truly impressive work in their supporting roles, but Pope is the one that really does most of the heavy lifting, as his fantastic performance helps to carry the film along. But as Ellis begins his journey to become a marine, some of the other recruits begin to suspect his sexual preferences, this immediately puts a big target on his back for discrimination and even more abuse, mental, verbal and physical. But his transformation into a marine and his determination to rise above the opposers who would see him fail, his mother included, makes for one of the more inspiring stories we’ll get to see on screen this year.

As far as the directorial debut from Elegance Bratton, I was neither terribly impressed nor disappointed. This coupled with a perfectly acceptable screenplay made for an adequate if not unremarkable effort for his big screen debut. Pope and the tight editing are the real stars of the show here. This film, left in other hands, could’ve easily went on around two hours and would’ve suffered greatly as if they needed to convince the audience of some kind of epic tale where incredible feats were unfolding before our eyes. Instead it was trimmed down and allowed to flourish in what it actually is, a decent little film about a man rising up and overcoming adversity. Pope is the other star of the show, his work is excellent and although he’s had a few minor roles before, this is really am impressive breakout performance from the rising star. Although the cinematography wasn’t anything outstanding, at a few different points in the film, especially during a dream sequence, there was some impressive lighting work and use of colors on display. In the end, I’ll say it again, The Inspection was an incredibly fluid movie, it progressed nicely and with a lean hour and a half runtime, it never lagged and never lost my interest.

SUMMARY - The Inspection may follow a familiar formula and Elegance Bratton may not have broke the mold in many of his writing or directorial choices. But his story is real. It’s  real, it’s fast paced and it’s inspiring, as far as the qualifications for being a good film, this one passes The Inspection.