We open on a large, oak conference table parked in the center of a board room in Chicago. Black and Brown faces huddle around it in a series of stern circles. They are the Interrupters, a group of civilian activists who fight to curb violence on the streets of the Windy City.
These men–most of them are men–are not exclusively ex-convicts, but many have served the harshest of time. They all know violence intimately as they previously made choices that caused their fellow Chicagoans to be robbed, beaten and/or murdered. The work they have come to discuss is quite grave in nature.
As we jump cut around the room, we see these people sharing reports, asking questions and casting votes. In one frame, a masculine hand pierces the air in affirmation of something. The hand has no middle finger. It is not clear why. While the word “irony” is used frequently without respect for its meaning, we can be certain this man’s four-fingered vote is an ironic one. For the reason he–and his fellow Interrupters–have gathered in this room is because they give a very determined fuck.
The Interrupters is a film brought to us by Steve James, the director of Hoop Dreams. If you know that film, you know his style. He plants a camera on the shoulders of his subjects and journeys with them into the most private moments of their personal struggles. In The Interrupters, we perch primarily on the shoulders of Ameena Matthews, Cobe Williams and Eddie Bocanegra as they mediate potentially explosive interpersonal conflicts between people who look like younger versions of themselves.
Once upon a time, Cobe and Eddie both did dirt. It was some really dirty dirt. They’ve since stopped. And they’re trying to karmically atone by convincing others to cease and seckle. As we see in the film, it’s a difficult sell. Ameena did her share of dirt, too. She is also the daughter of Jeff Fort, who was a pretty badass dude when he ran the Chicago streets. He co-founded the Black P. Stones and was known as a charismatic figure who could bring people together–sometimes for good and sometimes for not good. Jeff Fort’s daughter has a mesmerizing presence, and Ameena owns every frame of film in which she appears.
Ameena, Cobe, Eddie and the rest of the Interrupters work to shift the culture of Chicago’s streets from one that accepts citizens constantly raging against each other to one that can sustain peace for a few days at a time. It is a job where progress is measured in the most minute increments, and they work in neighborhoods where two steps backwards is better than three steps backwards.
The journeys we take with Ameena, Cobe and Eddie are sad, inspiring, infuriating, entertaining, scary and hopeful. Director Steve James and his team don’t do much editorializing. They don’t need to. This isn’t an advocacy film. It has no political agenda. Only a human one.
Advocacy films have become a cottage industry. The shame is they do little other than confirm their audience’s bias. You can make an excellent film on a major social dilemma, but you can only expect to connect with those who already agree with you. The culture wars leave us little middle ground to accommodate crossover thinking. Smart filmmakers have figured this out and have turned it into quite a racket. Some of them have won Oscars or earned millions of dollars in box office and DVD sales. Sometimes both. But have they actually moved the needle on any of our serious social problems?
What makes The Interrupters more than a standard advocacy film is the young people Ameena, Cobe and Eddie work with. We get to know a young woman who knows a whole lot about acting tough, but not much about being loved. We ride along with a cat who has just been released from prison and is finna catch another case ’cause he can’t figure out any other way to resolve a simple problem. We witness a brave teenager complete his prison term and return to the scene of his crime to personally ask forgiveness of the people he harmed. None of these people are Kody Scott. None are monsters, either. They share an intuitive desire for a simple human connection based on mutual respect. That may sound like a small thing, but it should not be mistaken for an easy answer. The Interruptors is not a film about easy answers–it’s a film about sustained effort.
As we root for the Interrupters to be successful in their work, the words of Chicago poet Kelly Tsai come to mind: “Change hurts. Living it is hard.” It is fundamentally American to seek out a second chance–to want to be reinvented or redeemed. However, living a life counter to everything you see and have known can seem an impossible task. Under such extreme circumstances, can any person really go it alone and sustain change? The people the Interrupters are working with–indeed, the Interrupters themselves–swim against a mighty current.
While the root causes of the violence afflicting Chicago’s streets are best addressed by those more qualified than this writer, one intriguing question hangs over the film. If Ameena, Cobe and Eddie are the heroes of the film, who or what is the villain? Institutions like schools and law enforcement agencies are easy targets for blame. Chalking it up to the general decay of culture is lazy. Condemning the people who suffer from the problem demonstrates both a lack of empathy and a grossly impractical attitude. If we lived in a world where evil could be identified by the curl of a mustache, it may be worth our time to single out a villain. But we don’t. So our time is best served creating roadmaps to deliver us from the treacheries that plague us.
We know that the Interrupters give a fuck. Perhaps those they are interrupting will soon do the same.
All photos via Kartemquin Films.
