There's a problem with Fruitvale Station caused by the decision to open the film with the camera phone footage (unsure if this was real or reconstructed) from the real life event. By showing where the film is heading it just makes everything else that then happens in the lead up feel manipulative and all the scenes could end with the viewer rolling their eyes in disbelief. Perhaps the real life events are well known to others so the decision to open with the footage made sense to the filmmakers but I wouldn't have felt so manipulated if I didn't know what was going to happen.
Once we catch up with the beginning of the film, the scenes at the station are incredible: shocking, intense, dramatic, horrifying and lift the whole film into the category where it's easy to see why it received all the praise. The rest of the film isn't bad either, Michael B. Jordan delivers a wonderful performance as Oscar Grant and manages to convey the flawed everyman despite the heavy handedness of those scenes.
My advice, if you don't know what happened at Fruitvale Station, is to start watching the film from the title card which appears at 2:25 and it may be a 5 star experience.
January 02, 2015 at 11:34PM
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