Queen & Slim shows Hollywood is still learning how to grapple with police shootings

But they are learning

Queen and Slim.
(Image credit: Illustrated | Screenshot/YouTube, -slav-/iStock)

In the recent police thriller 21 Bridges, Chadwick Boseman plays a police officer known, informally, as a killer of cop-killers — a man who will not hesitate when it comes to shooting down suspects if necessary. The story pays some lip service to the notion that police are themselves in need of stricter policing, but couches it in the usual material about a few bad-guy cops who are unambiguously corrupt (as opposed to systemically biased and racially motivated).

If this entertaining B-movie felt a little out of step, it's partially because traditional police heroes provoke an increasingly complicated reaction from audiences — and partially because Hollywood filmmakers have seemingly begun to understand the troubling regularity of real-life police shootings. Queen & Slim, opening nationwide this week, just five days after 21 Bridges, doesn't just hint at this dynamic; it's the film's inciting incident.

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Jesse Hassenger

Jesse Hassenger's film and culture criticism has appeared in The Onion's A.V. Club, Brooklyn Magazine, and Men's Journal online, among others. He lives in Brooklyn, where he also writes fiction, edits textbooks, and helps run SportsAlcohol.com, a pop culture blog and podcast.