Monsters and Men

Winner of the Special Jury Award for Outstanding First Feature at Sundance 2018, writer-director Reinaldo Marcus Green's audacious debut tackles the dilemma faced by three young men in the wake of an unlawful police shooting: should they take moral action or find safety in silence?

With performances that are uniformingly gripping, MONSTERS AND MEN adopts a ripple-effect narrative: from an eye-witness (Ramos) who captures the shooting on his phone; an African-American police officer (Washington) battling with his conscience to stand up against his fellow officers; to a local high school student (Harrison Jr.) who is tranformed from passive bystander to activist by the events. With fluid cinematography, that's at once alert and remarkably expressive, the film explores the ramification of such an event in both a terrifying and poetic way.