The Hard Stop (2015) User Reviews

Strong and different approach to a sadly familiar subject

[runamokprods · 7/10 · 23 May 2017]

Another tragic tale of a poor, young black man killed by police in what are – at best – highly questionable circumstances, and the riots that followed. But this story takes place in London, not the U.S. and is a powerful and timely reminder that issues of poverty, racism, police violence are far from uniquely American.

Amponsah defies the expected by focusing much less on the whys and hows of the shooting itself, and much more on the lives those left behind – specifically the two best friends of the victim, Mark Duggan. One, Marcus, is fueled by anger and grief at not only the death of his friend, but at the situation of his people, his neighborhood. He spends time in prison for helping to start the riots that followed the shooting – though the film briefly raises questions as to the fairness of the charge. Marcus was certainly present, and participated to some extent, but his claim that he also tried to stop things when the riot went from being an expression of outrage to an excuse to loot and pillage seems to be supported to at least some extent by closed circuit TV footage. He finds some solace in Muslim faith, and ultimately seems determined to try and make a change for the better in his poverty stricken neighborhood.

The other friend, Kurtis, is a lighter soul – funny and talkative, though no less hurt and angry at both Duggan's death, and the situation of his community.

The film can feel scattershot at times – it's neither fully an expose of an incident of injustice, nor a character study, nor a wider political polemic. In jumping around between those elements, it can sometimes undermine the sense of focus. But at the same time, there is something brave and new in trying to create a mosaic that covers both the past and the present, and does nothing to deny the bleakness of the situation, yet still offers hope, and people refusing to give up. In this, the film's strengths and weaknesses are really just two sides of the same coin.

I'm also open to the fact that I went in expecting more of an expose than an essay, so on 2nd viewing I might find it easier to go with the flow of the films that is, instead of being thrown by what it wasn't.

Certainly intelligent and important, and far from a simple story or simplistic approach.

One sided, unpersuasive documentary

[wellthatswhatithinkanyway · 2/10 · 30 December 2016]

STAR RATING: ***** Saturday Night **** Friday Night *** Friday Morning ** Sunday Night * Monday Morning

In August 2011, 29 year old suspected gang member Mark Duggan was shot dead by armed police on the streets of Tottenham, while they executed the titular heavy force procedure. This sparked a spate of rioting and mayhem across London, that gradually spread to the other major cities across the UK. The facts surrounding what lead up to the shooting and the narrative of Mark Duggan as an individual appear to be somewhat skewed, and filmmaker George Amponsah here casts a shadow on Marcus Knox Hooke and Kurtis Henville, two of Duggan's best childhood friends, as Hooke prepares to be sentenced for his role in the riots, and Henville goes about trying to find a job, while they both await the outcome of a trial that will decide whether their friend was lawfully killed or not.

The summer of 2011 is etched in my mind, and probably the minds of most other people in the UK at the time, as being the only real time when the law and order we take for granted in our everyday lives completely broke down, and terrifying mayhem and pandemonium broke out, the likes of which I'm glad to say I personally managed to avoid. But no one could have failed to notice the aftermath, or the sense of apprehensiveness it caused in people. Afterwards, some tried to say it had been building up for a while, and that the Duggan gentleman's death had been the final straw, and it's a narrative Amponsah seems to have latched on to in this one sided and unconvincing film that tries to warm us towards two of Duggan's dubious friends.

In amongst the present day events, Amponsah is inclined to take us back in time to the Broadwater Farm riots of 1985, in which PC Keith Blakelock was murdered, and use this as a launch pad to fuel his narrative of police hostility toward the black community that has apparently persisted for three decades, during which time many officers will have come and gone. It's certainly used to try and explain the mind sets of his two chosen subjects, and the decisions they made and the way they are. Sadly, despite their general affability toward the camera, neither still manage to come off as the types you'd be happy passing in a dark alley one night, injecting 'you get me' into seemingly every sentence and still displaying elements of the cocksure, swaggering 'hood life' attitude that seep through the cracks of their front and make them unsympathetic figures.

The ambiguity of who Duggan was, and the true circumstances surrounding his death will probably always be tooed and froed, but he was undeniably part of a pretty corrosive, ugly culture that your average person, black or white, probably wouldn't have met their end at. Amponsah may try and balance it out, quoting the number of deaths in police custody over the years at the end and pointing out that Duggan was falsely claimed to have been involved in a shootout, but the fact remains he's produced an unbalanced, uneven and unconvincing documentary that fails to provide any counter argument and has its sights clearly pointed one way. *

Everyone should watch this film

[kat_caldwell · 10/10 · 21 July 2016]

I cannot recommend this film highly enough.

In August 2011, a young unarmed black man was shot by the police. The media said "yeah but he was a bad guy" and the public said "ah well he probably deserved it then". This film shows the man behind the headlines, the humanity, and the grieving community left behind.

The film also gives what feels like a very intimate and honest insight into the lives of young black men growing up on the Broadwater Farm estate in Tottenham - it's raw and hard to watch at times but there is humour and hope as well as frustration and despair.

I've never really faced discrimination or prejudice and I've had opportunities handed to me on a plate my whole life, so it's hard to put myself in the shoes of the protagonists. The power of this film for me is that it challenges your assumptions and prejudices and allows you to relate as human beings.

I have a huge amount of respect for Marcus and Kurtis for putting themselves and their lives out there for everyone to see, warts and all, to try and get justice for their friend.

A must-see...

The Hard Watch......

[FlashCallahan · 10/10 · 15 July 2016]

In August 2011, 29-year-old Mark Duggan was shot and killed whilst being arrested by armed police in Tottenham, London.

This incident ignited a riot that escalated into a week of the worst civil unrest in recent British history.

His childhood friends, Marcus and Kurtis struggle to come to terms with the death of their friend - whilst also waiting to see if the inquest into his shooting will provide them with a satisfactory version of the truth........

To have the documentary be almost exclusively be from the point of view of Marcus and Kurtis, could be viewed as very one sided, but this was a lawless killing, and the outcome of the inquest is almost borderline parody, as it reminisces the court scene in J.F.K.

It pretty much sums up the huge mistake that the police made, the ways they tried to cover it up, and how this tension between the police and the African-Caribbean community has been gradually rising since the mid-eighties.

It's a very tough watch, especially in the early scenes where we are shown footage of the incident, and paramedics obviously performing cardio-pulmonary resuscitation on Duggan.

And this poor man was killed because of simple discrimination, just because someone dresses or talks a certain way, doesn't mean that they are about to commit a crime of any sort.

It's documentaries like this that show that the media brainwash the masses, that people paint others with the same brush. And it's true, anybody who went on holiday with their grandparents in the eighties and nineties always made fun of the Germans, because of something that happened a long time ago.

This proves that this killing was nothing more than a racially motivated attack by the police, and there's no two ways of saying it any different.

Marcus and Kurtis are almost numb with grief throughout most of the film, knowing that it could have easily been anyone of them in that car, and they would have received the same treatment as their friend.

It's no,wonder that there is so much hatred out there against the authorities, with every officer/ex officer who wants to make a difference, there is the one who let's the power go to their head.

It's a strong documentary with some very haunting imagery throughout, but all the while having that wonderful feel of a having a community united with grief, but most of all love.

Quite brilliant.