American Skin (film)

American Skin is a 2019 American drama film written and directed by Nate Parker. It stars Parker, Omari Hardwick, Theo Rossi, Shane Paul McGhie, Milauna Jackson and Beau Knapp, and follows a Marine veteran who works as a school janitor that takes matters into his own hands after his son is killed by a police officer.

American Skin
Official promotional poster
Directed byNate Parker
Produced by
Written byNate Parker
Starring
Music byHenry Jackman
CinematographyKay Madsen
Edited byBilly Weber
Production
companies
  • TM Films
  • Tiny Giant Entertainment
Distributed byVertical Entertainment
Release date
  • September 1, 2019 (2019-09-01) (Venice)
  • January 15, 2021 (2021-01-15) (United States)
Running time
89 minutes[1]
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$5 million[2]

The film had its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival on September 1, 2019, and was released in the United States on January 15, 2021, by Vertical Entertainment. It received generally negative reviews from critics.

Plot

Lincoln Jefferson, a U.S. Marine veteran who works as a janitor at a prestigious and mostly white junior high school, attempts to mend his relationship with his son after a divorce. One night, after picking his son up from a friend's house in a 'nice, all white neighborhood'they are pulled over and during the police traffic stop, the boy is shot and killed in front of Jefferson. A young boy and a film crew show up to create a documentary for a film festival. After the officer is cleared of wrongdoing without having to face trial, violence erupts and the police captain goes to the deceased teen mother’s to tell her to ask the community for a peaceful protest instead of rioting and violence. Omar tells Lincoln (while they’re watching the news) the first thing the police do is grab the mother and tell them to ask for a peaceful protest. Jefferson is forced to take matters into his own hands after watching. Lincoln goes to the police captain’s house and takes him away to the precinct as a hostage with the film crew in the car. He proceeds to take over the police station and hold it hostage, attempting a makeshift trial for the death of his son against the officer. The trial sees A lot of argument and discussion regarding racial relations and issues and ends with the officer admitting that he pulled them over because they were in fact blackened in an affluent neighborhood after midnight. He shot because he was scared for his life and that was what he was taught to do. The officer is found guilty, punishment is handed out and we see a moment of resolution before Lincoln is ultimately executed after leaving the police station, once again the only death, an unarmed black man.

Cast

Release

The world premiere of American Skin was held at the Venice Film Festival on September 1, 2019.[3][4] In December 2020, Vertical Entertainment acquired U.S. distribution rights to the film, and set it for a January 15, 2021 release.[5]

Over its first two weeks of release, the film finished in the top 10 on FandangoNow, Google Play, and Spectrum's PVOD rental charts.[6][7] On February 5, 2021, Vertical announced the film had made $4 million, a record for the studio.[8]

Critical response

Review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reported that 33% of 18 critics gave the film a positive review, with an average rating of 4.8/10.[9] Metacritic assigned the film weighted average score of 24 out of 100, based on 10 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews".[10]

IndieWire's David Ehrlich described the film as "like a cross between Frank Capra and Tommy Wiseau" and stated that it "is so bad that he deserves to be canceled on artistic grounds alone", giving it a D grade.[11] Xan Brooks at The Guardian raised the issue surrounding director Nate Parker's previous controversial acquittal of a rape while he was a student at Pennsylvania State University, and found the film to be "clotted, so strident and so thickly cloaked in self-pity that its impassioned story risks becoming worryingly self-serving. This interpretation isn't helped by Parker's decision to cast himself in the leading role of Linc Jefferson, a noble hero driven to breaking point by a miscarriage of justice." [12] Justin Chang of the Los Angeles Times also raised the issue of the controversy surrounding the movies of Parker and Polanski being shown at the Venice Film Festival and in his review called American Skin "a clumsy facsimile" of a film.[13] Parker addressed his past rape controversy during a press conference at the Venice Festival, saying that his "response during that time obviously left a lot of people frustrated and angered a lot of people and I apologize to them. I am still learning and growing." [14] Alonso Duralde from The Wrap wrote that "American Skin is a clunky, heavy-handed film that takes a pressing contemporary issue and flattens it under two genres the writer-director seems ill-equipped to handle — the mockumentary and the courtroom drama", adding that "There's certainly an idea for a movie here, but it's one that's undercut at nearly every turn, from the straw-man/mouthpiece arguments Parker's script puts into the mouths of most of the characters (including policemen and convicts alike) to the film's periodic abandonment of the student-footage gimmick".[15]

There was some positive feedback for the film. The Hollywood Reporter reported that American Skin was cheered by the Venice audience and received a seven-minute standing ovation.[16] Owen Gleiberman of Variety said, "It's a good movie: tense, bold, angry, empathetic, provocative, observant, morally engaged... The script - is what I associate with a certain kind of powerful playwriting, as in a drama like 12 Angry Men. The dialogue of is searing, forceful, edge-of-the-brain topical."[17] Elisabeth Sereda of the Golden Globe Awards hailed American Skin as "a lesson in race relations in a country with a current government that is not famous for knowing or caring much about this topic." Sereda wrote: "The film is anything but predictable, and its message is far from the usual cliché we hear on the news."[18]

On September 7, 2019, American Skin was voted the "Best Film" in the Sconfini Section of the Venice Film Festival, becoming the first American film based on the theme of racial injustice to be awarded the prize.[19]

Awards and nominations
Year Award Category Recipients Result Ref.
2019 Venice Film Festival Sconfini Section Prize for Best Film Nate Parker Won [20]

References
  1. "American Skin". Venice Film Festival. Retrieved August 7, 2019.
  2. "Nate Parker's 'American Skin' Producer: He "Deserves a Second Chance"". The Hollywood Reporter. August 22, 2019. Retrieved February 5, 2021.
  3. Tartaglione, Nancy (August 7, 2019). "Nate Parker's 'American Skin' To World Premiere At Venice Film Festival". Deadline Hollywood. Retrieved August 7, 2019.
  4. Sharf, Zack (August 7, 2019). "Nate Parker to Premiere 'Birth of a Nation' Follow-Up at Venice, Spike Lee Hails Film as 'Tour de Force'". IndieWire. Retrieved August 7, 2019.
  5. Wiseman, Andreas (December 8, 2020). "Nate Parker's 'American Skin' Sells To Vertical For North America, First Trailer Ahead Of Awards-Qualifying Release". Deadline Hollywood. Retrieved December 8, 2020.
  6. https://www.indiewire.com/2021/01/news-of-the-world-tenet-vod-the-white-tiger-netflix-1234611532/
  7. https://www.indiewire.com/2021/02/vod-tenet-news-of-the-world-1234613701/
  8. D'Alessandro, Anthony (February 5, 2021). "Nate Parker's 'American Skin' Scores PVOD Revenue Record For Vertical Entertainment". Deadline Hollywood. Retrieved February 5, 2021.
  9. "American Skin (2021)". Rotten Tomatoes. Fandango Media. Retrieved February 5, 2021.
  10. "American Skin Reviews". Metacritic. Red Ventures. Retrieved 26 January 2021.
  11. Ehrlich, David (September 1, 2019). "'American Skin' Review: Nate Parker's Terrible Comeback is Like a Cross between Frank Capra and Tommy Wiseau." IndieWire. Retrieved December 11, 2019.
  12. Brooks, Xan (1 September 2019). "American Skin review: Nate Parker is noble victim in compromised comeback". The Guardian. Retrieved 12 April 2020.
  13. Chang, Justin (3 September 2019). "Roman Polanski and Nate Parker both have movies at the Venice Film Festival. Only one is worth seeing". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 12 April 2020.
  14. Macnab, Geoffrey. "Emotional Nate Parker addresses rape controversy, talks future career plans". Screen. Retrieved 12 April 2020.
  15. Duralde, Alonso (September 1, 2019). "'American Skin' Film Review: Nate Parker's Disappointing Sophomore Effort Mixes Mockumentary and Courtroom Drama." The Wrap. Retrieved December 11, 2019.
  16. Roxborough, Scott (September 1, 2019). "Venice Audience Cheers Nate Parker's 'American Skin'." The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved October 18, 2019.
  17. Gleiberman, Owen (September 1, 2019). "Venice Film Review: Nate Parker’s 'American Skin'." Variety. Retrieved December 11, 2019.
  18. Sereda, Elisabeth (September 4, 2019). "Nate Parker on American Skin." GoldenGlobes.com. Retrieved December 11, 2019.
  19. Fleming, Mike (September 7, 2019). "Nate Parker's 'American Skin' Wins Venice Sconfini Section Best Film Prize." Deadline Hollywood. Retrieved December 11, 2019.
  20. Fleming Jr, Mike (September 7, 2019). "Nate Parker's 'American Skin' Wins Venice Sconfini Section Best Film Prize". Deadline Hollywood. Retrieved September 8, 2019.
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