The Slow Hustle

I give this a 10 star rating as it is such an important film addressing the deep seated racism in the American justice system, politics and of coarse, policing. Here we have the murder of a black police officer, sweep under the carpet, never properly investigated, dismissed as a suicide. Sometimes I wished films like this actually could impact change, if only. But maybe, just maybe, if there are enough of such films , and enough of us see them, we will be able to effect a change.

As "The Slow Hustle" (2021 release; 88 min.) opens, it's "November 15, 2017" and we hear a frantic 911 call about a Baltimore police officer having been shot, and we then get the body cam footage as cops arrive on the scene. African-American police officer Sean Suiter is pronounced dead soon thereafter. Who did this? How is this going to be investigated? At this point we are less than 10 min into the documentary. Couple of comments: this is the latest from Baltimore actress turned director turned activist Sonja Sohn. Now 4 years since the death of Sean Suiter, she reassesses what happened in 2017 and in the years running up to those events. It ain't a pretty picture. The Baltimore Police Department is reeling from the 2015 Freddie Gray murder and social unrest, and also from massive corruption, resulting in 8 cops being indicted in early 2017. And what then about Sean Suiter's death? Multiple theories are advanced, which Sohn examines carefully, including by letting talking heads like a seasoned Baltimore Sun reporter and local TV reports give their independent perspective (I don't want to spoil and hence won't say any more on this). But the overall sense and picture is of a large police department being engulfed by corruption and dirty cops, with little to no regard for the population that it is supposed to serve. For shame. "The Slow Hustle" premiered on HBO a few days ago, and is now available on HBO On Demand, HBO Max (where I caught it) and eventually on DVD/Blu-ray. If you are interested in the role of a large police department within its own community, while also looking at the mysterious death of one of their own, I'd readily suggest you check this out, and draw your own conclusion.

Most documentaries follow the the literary formula established by Gay Tálese in print journalism. They set forth a series of facts molded into the kind of story familiar to all of us from fiction. The camera follows a character on a quest for information through a series of events and ends with some kind of emotional pay off. In this story, the widow of Baltimore police officer Sean Suiter tries to find out who killed her husband. The film begins as Suiter's partner calls 911 to report that he has been shot in the head, and the viewer watches through a body cam as a tape of his partner's panicked voice plays in the background. What follows is a funeral with honors where Baltimore's finest honors one of its own. He is praised by cops and politicians. And then we get to the real story. It's likely that Suiter was not only murdered by another cop, but that, he will never have justice. His wife knows it, the filmmaker knows it and, by the end of the movie, so does the audience. As it turns out, for ever Serpico who becomes a hero at fighting corruption, there are countless Sean Suiters. And the corruption still wins. Actress and director Sonja Sohn does an excellent job of showing how a high profile murder can go unsolved in a city like Baltimore. She doesn't care about where the viewer wants the story to go, or even what the viewer thinks. She tells the story, shows the human toll, and reminds us that corruption is bottomless. At times, it's a tough watch, but imagine how tough it is for Sean Suitor's family.