Fruitvale Station

Director: Ryan Coogler

Genre: Drama

Starring: Michael B. Jordan, Octavia Spencer, Melonie Diaz, Kevin Durand

Distributed by: The Weinstein Company

Release Date: July 26, 2013

My Rating: 8/10

I always like watching films that are based on a true story. Movies are a great way of raising awareness amongst the general public about events that actually took place, and you look at the film differently from the moment you walk into the theatre because you know the story is real and not a work of fiction.

This film-produced by Forest Whitaker-tells the true story of 22-year-old Oscar Grant (Michael B. Jordan), a young black man living in Oakland, California with his girlfriend Sophina (Melonie Diaz) and young daughter Tatiana. After having been arrested a year before the start of the film's events, Oscar has become determined to make some changes in his life: get a steady job to provide for his girlfriend and daughter, and strengthen his relationship with his mother (Octavia Spencer). On December 31, 2008, Oscar, Sophina and their friends decide to take a Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) train to San Francisco to celebrate New Year's Eve. All goes well until Oscar begins a fight with another man who was an inmate with him in prison, causing the train to stop at Fruitvale Station and BART officers to forcibly remove Oscar and his friends from the train and arrest them. After a long shouting match between the police and the young adults and a number of resists, one of them shoots Oscar in the back.

The film is very short, with a running-time of about 90 minutes. However, not much appears to happen during the first 45 minutes or so, although it is evident why: the main purpose served by the first half of the film is not to demonstrate the relationship that Oscar has with his loved ones-his friends, his mother, his girlfriend and his daughter-and both the happiness and arguments that he develops with them. These scenes are beautifully written and acted, and come off as very genuine, although they could have been slightly developed and prolonged in exchange for two or three out-of-place scenes that could have been omitted.

Once the film finally reaches the main action, the events seem to unfold much more quickly, and the long-running scene at the end where Oscar and his friends are stopped by the police is an incredible and heart-pounding sequence. This movie is a fantastic portrayal of the final day in a young adult's life: I really liked that all of the events-except for one flashback-occurred over a single day, thus reinforcing the idea that you have to live each day as if it were your last. The film also raises questions about the power and brutality of law enforcement officers, injustice and racism, since the other man with whom Oscar started a fight on the train was white and the film never seems to show that man even being arrested. Overall, this film shows a powerful story about a youth who became a symbol in the Bay Area after that fateful day and remains one to this day.