Popular reviews

• 

  Review by Jay ★½ 26

  This has some nice moments that had some strong untapped potential, but the rest of it can fuck off. Well intended, but hell no. Exploits the actual bodies on screen to make a point that was made very early on. The way people praise this is why we have not made any progress yet with this issue. There is nothing eye opening here. No new forms of micro aggressions or how black people each day navigate different forms of whitesplaining or white centric environments. This is disgusting and nothing more than black trauma used as a way for white people to say how power this was. Just another example of black trauma presented to be anti black.

• 

  Review by ImmigrantFilm ½ 29

  0.5/5.0 = Notably Terrible

  Note: I only review short films if they're nominated for an Oscar. I don't like the idea of publishing criticism on other short films.

  Joey Bada$$ police brutality drama TWO DISTANT STRANGERS is easily the worst short film nominated for the Academy award since 2017s SILENT NIGHTS. Honestly, it may be the worst short film I've ever seen, full stop. This is totally irresponsible, careless, stupid, juvenile, and tactless filmmaking. I'm not the first to say this and I sure won't be the last, but just because a film stands on the right side of an issue doesn't mean it's good. In fact, it's somewhat of an obligation (both on the part of the film industry…

• 

  Review by Jakob Mathews ★ 10

  This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.

  *SPOILERS*

  I’m actually dumbfounded by these positive reviews, because I found this to be horrifically exploitative, messy, and unsubtle in just about every single way. The writing is horrible and pandering, the acting (aside from possibly Joey Bada$$, who is decent, and I just like him) is horrible, and the overall execution is so misguided. The themes that are being presented are important and obviously deserve to be at the front line of discussion, but something about a racist police officer killing an innocent black man a hundred times in a Groundhog’s Day scenario seems...kind of like the definition of exploitative??

  The tone is all over the place and it isn’t helped by an ending so unbelievably tone deaf and…

• 

  Review by eely 4

  all he had to do was give the cop a pepsi

• 

  Review by john

  The first couple of minutes of this gets muddled somewhere in between the product placement and the stilted acting. Dialogue is pretty bland too.

  Once it picks up, it's a decent watch, but I couldn't help but feel like parts of this are bordering exploitative.

  Important story; obviously. I just think there's a better way to tell it.

• 

  Review by The Oscar Expert ★½ 12

  Oof, very cringe. Extremely over-the-top with its messaging. Mediocre acting and writing throughout. The reveal at the end is dumb. The message it's going for is fine but it's not thoughtful enough to justify me watching this guy die over and over. Doesn't really sit well with me.

• 

  Review by cleansing my soul of addiction🦋 ★

  lmfao what the fuck is thisss im so tired of niggas. i honestly saw the shot w the africa bloodstain on twt and thought it'd be funny to hatewatch this but this is some deplorable shit fr i'd rather show my kids 12 years a slave??? there really is no limit to how far niggas will go to help craquers get off to Black people being brutalized on screen. what was the purpose of starting off this movie by executing joey badass in the same exact fashion as george floyd? is it breaking new ground to cast this corny ass nigga with 0 onscreen flair in your movie regardless of what it is, let alone this woke trauma porn garbage???…

• 

  Review by Madison Wake ½ 3

  somehow this is the whitest thing I’ve ever seen

• 

  Review by Megan Bitchell ½ 2

  Maybe the most heinous thing I have ever seen. If you’re wondering, it is a Groundhog Day situation but the main guy keeps getting killed by the police. There is like an exact recreation of the George Floyd video. The acting is bad, the dialogue for the woman character is awful, and she’s also bad at acting. The dialogue for everyone is very bad. Literally just my jaw was on the floor the whole time. Why are there 40 producers on this? Who was this made for? Why was this nominated for an Oscar? This is whatever an industry plant is for movies. Everyone involved should be banned from making movies for like 20 years.

• 

  Review by james💫 ½

  the concept had good intentions, but the acting, dialogue, and the overall execution brought it down a lot for me. it’s so disgusting the more you think about it

• 

  Review by JBird ★★★½

  A short film that's really ambitious,
  As time loops are usually fictitious.
  Each and every day,
  Will end the same way,
  Staying in a cycle that's vicious.

• 

  Review by 🔪 Leighton Trent 🔪 ★★½

  The time loop premise presented here, in which a black man experiences repeated vicious attacks from a white cop that acts as a stand-in metaphor for the cycle of systemic violence African-Americans have experienced at the hands of the police in our country, is an effective and ambitious conceit but the casual exploitation of its volatile subject and its clunky first draft script proves that this is nothing more than mediocre art in the guise of progress.