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Blindspotting centres around Collin (Daveed Diggs), who has completed a 2-month sentence in jail after what happened when he worked as the bouncer for a bar (which you’ll discover as you watch the film), and is now going out on a one-year probation period. We then fast-forward in time to when he has just three days left to go. Can he keep out of a trouble? Well, since they’ve made a film about this night’s events, what do you think?
Before long, he witnesses an altercation at the traffic lights when a white policeman shoots an unarmed black man (well, he’s later reported as having been armed, but I don’t trust the cops in this film, nor in real life), and feels like he wants to get involved in some way, but at the same time, he still doesn’t want to screw up his probation, especially when it’s bad enough if he simply gets back to his halfway house a few minutes after the 11pm curfew.
The term blindspotting is about how you can look at something in more than one way, but you can’t see that other way, yourself, so that’s your blindspot, and we follow the journey for Collin on the verge of completing probation, and from the moment he sees the cop until we see how he exorcises his demons about the situation.
Elsewhere, he and best friend Miles (Rafael Casal) chatting whilst walking down the street is like watching a Grand Theft Auto V cutscene, especially since the latter is white and trying to talk like he’s a black man from the ghetto, although he still refuses to use the n-word even when it’s used a term of affection between himself and Collin. However, he does always wear a grill over his teeth to try and fit in, despite it looking ridiculous on him.
With a fantastic picture and soundtrack which bring the heat of the situations within to life, Blindspotting features great acting, writing, direction, plot and characters in this, with many elements which call back to earlier events. There’s a powerful performance from Diggs, and great support from Casal, and there’s great chemistry between the two, which shows that – as is explained in the extras – they’ve known each other and worked together for 20 years, whether writing scripts or songs, the latter showing as the pair freestyle and riff many a rap at any point including when working for a removal firm whilst wheeling and dealing on the side.
All the while, Collin can’t get the shooting out of his mind and it all leads to an incredible conclusion, and at a mere 96 minutes, it doesn’t outstay its welcome.
There are just a few extras on this disc, but they’re certainly well worth getting stuck into:
- Straight from the Town: Making Blindspotting (26:18): A great behind-the-scenes piece with plenty of chat from the cast and crew as we’re talked through many key scenes in the film, which I won’t go into here so as to avoid spoilers.
- Blindspotting Director’s Diary (17:11): On-set footage and an introduction to the all the crew as they’re featured from day one onwards, and his trainers aren’t so clean after five weeks as they were on day one 😉
- Deleted Scenes (6:18): Not just deleted scenes, but additional rap freestyling, which doesn’t all need to be put back in the film, but it’s nice to watch as an extra.
- Audio commentaries: Two here – one from director Carlos López Estrada, and one from producer/writers/actors Daveed Diggs and Rafael Casal.
- Audio description: Does exactly what it says on the tin.
The menu features a short piece of music on a loop, set against clips from the film. Subtitles are in English and Spanish, and there are a bog-standard 12 chapters.
Blindspotting is released today on Blu-ray, Amazon Prime and DVD.
|
FILM CONTENT PICTURE QUALITY SOUND QUALITY EXTRAS |
9 10 8 4 |
| OVERALL | 8 |
Detailed specs:
Cert: 
Running time: 96 minutes
Year: 2018
Distributor: Lionsgate
Cat.no: LIB95660R0
Released: February 4th 2019
Chapters: 12
Picture: 1080p High Definition
Sound: English Dolby Atmos, Spanish DD5.1
Languages: English, Spanish
Subtitles: English SDH, Spanish
Format: 1.85:1 (ProRes 4:4:4 XQ (3.2K))
Disc Format: BD50
Director: Carlos López Estrada
Producers: Jess Calder, Keith Calder, Rafael Casal, Daveed Diggs
Screenplay: Rafael Casal, Daveed Diggs
Music: Michael Yezerski
Cast:
Collin: Daveed Diggs
Miles: Rafael Casal
Val: Janina Gavankar
Ashley: Jasmine Cephas Jones
Officer Molina: Ethan Embry
Mama Liz: Tisha Campbell-Martin
Rin: Utkarsh Ambudkar
James: Kevin Carroll
Yorkie: Nyambi Nyambi
Dezz: Jon Chaffin
Patrick: Wayne Knight
Nancy: Margo Hall
Sean ‘Ziggy’ Jones: Ziggy Baitinger
Judge: Leland Orser
Randall Marshall: Travis Parker
Curtis ‘Cuttie’ Cutworth: Lance Cameron Holloway
Tin: Justin Chu Cary
Chet: Casey Adams
Marty: Michael Rhys Kan
Jimmy: Justin Liu
Terry: Aviel Ayoung
Nak: Rolanda D Bell
Sid: John Moeslein
Angela: Sarah Kay
Tanner: George Watsky
Rachel Molina: Kendra Andrews
Tel: E Ambriz DeColosio
Officer Farmer: Zack Duhame
Tina: Amanda Encelan
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.