The 3rd of Steve McQueen’s Small Axe Anthology Series is the best one so far. Unleashing all that pent up Star Wars rage, John Boyega shows off that talent that landed him in Disney’s prize franchise. But, unlike Star Wars’s Force crippling his voice, Steve McQueen hands Boyega that Small Axe and lets him go to town on the big tree, just like Leroy Logan did to the British police force.
The funny thing about Leroy Logan (Boyega), though, is that he wouldn’t seem like a cop candidate. Living a comfortable life as a forensic scientist with a loving, supportive girlfriend Gretl (Antonia Thomas), Leroy gets that pang the truly heroic people get, called to his new calling to try to reform the police from within. Leroy’s father, Ken (Steve Toussaint) is more than a little agitated by his son’s choice. Forget the standard downgrade from PhD job to working for the man, Ken, as Leroy was about to join the force, got assaulted by two police officers for a “traffic incident,” causing fraying in their relationship.
Leroy Logan’s story is easy to admire. In telling his story, Steve McQueen shows why he’s smarter than your average writer director, who would bullet point his story and almost deify him. Sticking to the theme of his anthology, McQueen’s story shows the consequences of being the Small Axe: how that big ol’ tree ain’t coming down anytime soon, dulling your blade and wanting you to give up and move on. McQueen shows how Logan’s lofty idealism makes him a double target. Policemen Leroy knew would grow irritated by him; however, it becomes pretty clear as the story goes on that Leroy doesn’t know quite how many policemen are against his cause, and at what power level. What Leroy didn’t quite expect was the hostility from the West Indian community. Years of warranted distrust in the community towards the Bobbies makes young kids see him as a sellout/traitor to the enemy. Systemic pressure hits poor Officer Logan from all sides, some direct, but mostly indirect, and faceless, like the “N word” on his locker, not getting promoted despite sterling reviews as good or better than peers. No scene sums up Leroy’s quest so simply and powerfully like Officer Logan chasing a criminal through an industrial warehouse, machines humming around him, content to ignore the problem that he goes for head on.
It also helps that McQueen found a perfect pairing of material with actor. John Boyega, in his Star Wars stint, went through some similar issues Leroy Logan went through himself. Boyega imbues Logan with a fierce power and initially an ironclad will to do right by his community. Boyega navigates the code switching effortlessly, suppressing his righteous anger at work as much as he can, while also being warm and caring to his family and other West Indian citizens, showing that Leroy is emotionally driven but controlled by laser precise understanding of his mission. As the story goes on, Boyega unleashes that well of anger more and more that the emotions start to overcome Leroy, stressing him out and wearing him down as he realizes he’s going to be alone in this quest. The movie rises to the occasion because Boyega’s history had, like Leroy, given him the emotional drive and laser focused understanding on how to play the character.
McQueen is 3 for 3. If Red White & Blue is the high water mark for the anthology, that’s fine. McQueen and John Boyega forged the perfect small axe in this series to lead the rest of the series to do some tree choppin. In a year to forget, Red White & Blue represents one of the bright spots that will make me smile when I look back on this year. And hopefully Steve McQueen showed the rest of the world that John Boyega, when given great material, can make a movie amazing.