THE INSPECTION

Wednesday, February 8, 2023
The Inspection    USA
Location: SilverCity
Showtimes: 6:30 & 8:30 pm

Director: Elegance Bratton
Cast: Jeremy Pope, Gabrielle Union, Raúl Castillo
Running Time: 95 minutes
Language: English

Advisory: themes of homophobia, violence, sexually suggestive scenes, coarse language

Awards: African-American Film Critics Association (AAFCA), Best Actor, Jeremy Pope; National Board of Review: Top 10 Independent Films; Palm Springs International Film Festival: Directors to Watch. Santa Barbara International Film Festival: Virtuoso Award; Jeremy Pope. Two other wins, 31 nominations

“Jeremy Pope gives a searing performance as the young man lacking direction, with Gabrielle Union a powerful force as the mother who initially disowns him.”---Richard Roeper, Chicago Sun-Times

At war with his sense of belonging, Ellis French (Jeremy Pope) is a sensitive young Black man who enlists in the Marine Corps to pull himself out of homelessness and gain the love of his dogged and combatant mother (played by scene-stealing Gabrielle Union). 

While the film takes place in the age of America’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, Don’t Pursue” policy, which directed that applicants to the military not be asked about sexual orientation, homophobia is deeply entrenched in all aspects of service, from boot camp to battle. 

Once enlisted, French struggles to conceal his sexual identity — as well as his invading attraction to his drill instructor (Raúl Castillo) — while under the watchful eye of the belligerent and hard-lining unit commander (Bokeem Woodbine).

The Inspection is writer-director Elegance Bratton’s retelling of his own incredible story. After being kicked out of his mother’s New Jersey home at the age of 16 for being gay and subsequently living in housing precariously for a decade, he joined the Marines, where he served as a combat cameraman. 

Bratton is ably assisted by his director of photography Lachlan Milne (Hunt for the Wilderpeople, Minari, Stranger Things). Emmy and Tony nominee Pope (One Night in Miami) portrays French with exquisite aplomb. Bratton’s powerful fiction debut is a heartfelt love letter to survival and staying true to oneself despite adversity on all fronts.