The 1969 killing at age 21 of Illinois Black Panther Party chairman Fred Hampton was a potent secondary plot point last year in Aaron Sorkin's The Trial of the Chicago 7.
That same government hit job gets expanded treatment and wields proportionately explosive impact in Shaka King's Judas and the Black Messiah, a historical thriller with an urgency that speaks even louder more than half a century later.
Led by sensational performances from Daniel Kaluuya as Hampton and LaKeith Stanfield as William O'Neal, the FBI informant who infiltrated his inner circle, this is a scalding account of oppression and revolution, coercion and betrayal, rendered more shocking by the undiminished currency of its themes.
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