This time travel, back to the future critical race theory on steroids rebel road movie shakes up that classic looking glass, with sixties uprising blaxploitation fury - while exhuming the buried history of slavery in this relentlessly self-congratulatory country. And the best action hero so far this year. In other words, Right On.
As Keke Palmer in a phenomenal portrayal of the designated ultimately rebel slave, traverses centuries back and forth in an uncharted but enlightening quest. And to figure it all out on the way to correcting on her terms, the shameful, unrecognized and unresolved history of slavery and racist brutality in America.
And while executive producer Common has not only assembled a hypnotic soundtrack composed along with Patrick Warren, Karrien Riggins, Isaiah Sharkey and Burniss Travis - but steps side and concedes to a female co-star as the main attraction for a change. Along with portraying as a Georgia trucker and flawed guiding light for Alice through the seventies political racial turmoil, again rare on screen, a mutually evolving platonic relationship. Basically Common - just keeps on truckin'.
African American director Krystin Ver Linden displays a deep dive youthful vigor and energy taking narratively brave chances on multiple time travel excursions - ultimately connecting slave horrors back then to working class oppression today. And seemingly following her own delivered manifesto instructing in the film herself: 'Doing the right thing is never wrong.'
While as valiant postscript, Alice is 'Dedicated to the African Americans who remained enslaved during the Twentieth Century, and to those who remain oppressed world-wide."
Prairie Miller
