Can change come from within the system? That’s the question at the heart of Red, White and Blue, the third installment in Steve McQueen’s five-film anthology, Small Axe. John Boyega plays Leroy Logan, a son of Jamaican immigrants who joins the London police force in the 1980s hoping to counteract racist policies and practices. (The real Logan worked for the London Metropolitan Police from 1983 to 2013.) In only 80 minutes, Red, White and Blue tries to tackle a lot of Logan’s life (his relationships with his parents, his wife, colleagues, and wayward kids on the beat) and as such can feel a bit scattered. It’s the only Small Axe installment that feels like it might have worked better as its own series. In addition, a few too many scenes explicitly explain via dialogue what we’ve already been shown. (A wordless goodbye between Leroy and his father, as Al Green’s “How Can You Mend a Broken Heart” plays on the car radio, might be the movie’s best moment.) But at least Boyega is in almost every scene, giving the somewhat routine proceedings a jolt of magnetic star power (and dancing!). And there are some trenchant observations about policing in general, especially in the context of the American protests against police violence over the summer of 2020. Leroy’s wife (Antonia Thomas) at one point says that another reason he likely wants to become a constable is because it “appeals to your macho, vain sensibility.” If this is how we’ve come to define the job, might that be part of the problem?
