Black and Blue (2019)

Black and Blue is a 2019 action thriller from Deon Taylor. It stars Naomie Harris as Alicia West, an Army veteran and rookie cop in New Orleans. The title does a lot of semiotic labor. It places a Black woman at the center of a genre traditionally policed by white men, and the casting is not incidental. The film's primary cultural register is racial. A Black officer moves between a community that distrusts police and a department harboring corrupt white cops. That tension is the engine. It is not subtle, but it is present.

The film's feminist dimensions are modest. West is competent, physically capable, and allowed to drive the action. The screenplay does not pause for gender critique. Her womanhood is a fact, not an argument. The preachiness is similarly restrained. The film gestures at police corruption and community trust, then returns to car chases and body cameras. Critics found the topical treatment simplistic. That is fair. It is an action thriller with social garnish, not a sermon. The film does not mention climate, capitalism, body image, neurodivergence, or LGBTQ lives. It is not a historical revision. It has no interest in rewriting the past. These absences are not failures. They are simply absences.

We are left with a sturdy B-movie with a strong lead and a muddled conscience. The racial consciousness is real enough, rooted in New Orleans geography and the double bind of a Black cop. The representation behind the camera matters. Deon Taylor directs. The cast is predominantly Black. But the film treats its ideas as texture. It wants to entertain first. The result is a curious artifact from 2019: aware of its cultural moment, unwilling to fully argue with it. We score it accordingly. A moderate case of social consciousness, served with gunfire.