“Bruiser” builds on a massive brawler, which, in a different kind of movie, would be the main attraction. But director Miles Warren has other priorities than dramatizing violence between black men in a film that is preoccupied instead with the source of such aggression. Insightful and universal in many ways, Warren’s debut feature is a confident if sometimes skewed coming-of-age story from an important new voice, centering on an African-American teenager torn between two very different ideals, one insisting he stay focused and “take his block.” , the other willing to teach the boy how to defend himself in a fight.
Fourteen-year-old Darius (Galen Hall) has all kinds of reasons to be angry. His parents, Malcolm (Shamir Anderson) and Monica (Shenel Azuruh), send him to a private school full of relatively privileged kids. His classmates have a summer vacation in Greece to look forward to, but when the break comes, Darius must return to the humble reality of his life, where he can’t afford a new bike and is being pushed around by white kids. Darious wants sympathy, but instead, his car salesman dad is strict and distracts a lot.
The boy takes for granted how much Malcolm does to make money and arrange scholarships so that Darius can get a better education than he did. This is a nuance of the American Dream that Bruiser understands but most people overlook: In the United States, success is possible, but it is usually iterative: Parents hope their children have it easier, but it can take generations to get to a place of comfort. Preoccupied with his wealthy colleagues, Darious doesn’t realize how good he is. And besides, he was tired of being beaten.
“I want to learn how to protect myself,” Darius assures, but the only person who will show him is Porter (Trevante Rhodes), a muscular jock he met by chance behind “John’s House,” one of the local kids’ hangout spots. Darius sees in Porter something he wants for himself — self-confidence and strength for sure, perhaps independence — adopting this male adult as a kind of surrogate father figure, not realizing (spoiler alert) that the man is actually his biological father.
Porter immediately puts it together, realizing who Darius is, which helps explain the immediate (but unusual) connection between these two. You’d think Darious would be more wary of strangers. However, he resents Malcolm’s discipline and looks for guidance where he can get it, ignoring his parents’ objections and spending time with Porter just fine. The film takes its time revealing how Darius’ family rebuilds itself after being abandoned by Porter, though Warren and co-writer Ben Medina never give all the answers. It’s more realistic that way. There’s some sort of rhetoric against mine in the rival accounts, as the film positions Malcolm and Porter as rivals for the boy’s upbringing. But one thing is clear: Both men have a history of violence, while Darious has the capacity for it within himself.
The film’s dreamlike opening shot shows the three spread out on the lawn, and though we have no context to explain it at the time, it lingers in our memories until the climax, when Our Father Darius explodes. Who will raise the boy? Anderson and Rhodes handle their roles well, tearing at each other like two guys when the time comes, but Hall – the young, fresh-faced actor who recently played Emmett Till – seems like more of a revelation. In “Till,” Hall’s character is brutally killed off early on, while “Bruiser” rides on his performance. Darious doesn’t talk much, and vents most of his frustrations, yet the actor conveys the boy’s complex emotions throughout.
DP Justin Derry shoots the movie mostly from Darious’s point of view, though there are a few scenes that feature his parents: We meet his mom before Darious’s introduction, for example, and we see Malcolm repeatedly on the phone alone. One of the things that makes “Bruiser” so effective is the way it recreates the teenage experience: Darious mentions how insecure and impatient you feel, anxious about a long-distance relationship he can feel falling apart and itching to break out of the dead-end place he was born into.
That intense, evocative subjectivity reminded me of “Moonlight”—especially the middle chapter, about teenage Sherron. The two films share an actor (Rhodes) and a producer (Jorel Ross), and while “Bruiser” isn’t generally well rounded, it promises great things from Warren. The director avoids clichés by making the story specific to these characters, responding to stereotypes of black aggression through images of family life and the church. From the squared-off academic proportion and unconventional framing to composer Robert Ouyang Rusli’s tense, bracing conflict score, Warren’s choices surprise plenty, ending in a finish that does exactly the right thing with a confrontation we can feel throughout.
The first narrative feature acquired by Disney’s new Onyx Collective, “Bruiser” is receiving a limited theatrical release the week of December 2, ahead of its release on Hulu in 2023.
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