Mark Reviews Movies: THE INSPECTION

The Inspection, A24

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Review by Mark Dujsik | November 17, 2022

The debut feature of writer/director Elegance Bratton tells a very personal story. We know that's the case because the filmmaker doesn't try to hide that fact. At the end of The Inspection, Bratton includes a pair of photos, one of himself, dressed in his Marine uniform, and one of his mother, to whom the film is dedicated. Such a description might suggest a certain type of story. This is not that kind of tale.

No, this tells the story of a 26-year-old man, who has lived on the streets and in shelters for a decade after being kicked out his home as a teenager. The reason is that this man is gay. The person who enforced that exile is his mother. The career in the military is the man's attempt to find some stability in his life and the son's effort to change his mother's heart.

The young man—serving as a stand-in for the filmmaker to a degree that we will leave to him and not speculate upon any more than the mere existence of a connection—is named Ellis French (Jeremy Pope). His plan seems fairly simple, and when it becomes clear that the homophobia displayed to such an extreme degree by his mother continues at boot camp for the Marines, Bratton's film itself seems to have a simple point, too. This man has faced prejudice and hatred from the one person he believes should love him the most and unconditionally, and in order to fix that, he must endure the same kind of prejudice and hate, as well as violence.

That Ellis will overcome these challenges to some extent is more or less a given for this story, even before we know that the current path of that tale will eventually lead to this point—in which Bratton can tell his story in a fictionalized way. How will this character accomplish that, though? What lessons will he learn, and which ones will he teach to others? As with all matters of family, those answers are more complex than the questions.

The structure of Bratton's screenplay does present Ellis' journey as the story of two families—different in plainly obvious ways but similar in attitude, as well as in the impact they have on the person he has become and will become. Ellis' first encounter in this story, after taking a long trip by foot and on train from the shelter where he's currently living to his former home, is with his mother. She's Inez (Gabrielle Union, shedding some of her intrinsic glamour to play a down-to-earth character in an effective performance), and she won't even let her son into the apartment when he first arrives.

It's only after Ellis announces that he needs his birth certificate so that he can enlist in the Marines that she hesitantly opens the door for him. Even then, Inez wants her gone as soon as quickly as possible, going so far as to put down newspapers where he'll be sitting and where his skin might touch the furniture.

Most of the story, though, unfolds over the course of basic training, which isn't quite a family—if only yet, because a recruit, in the minds of those in charge, isn't worthy of being considered part of the fraternity of the corps. What follows here is, for the most part, to be expected. Ellis has enlisted in a post-9/11, War on Terror era of the Marines—a time when the policy on gay men and women in the military was still that no one in charge asks and no one tells.

This unit, run by a drill instructor named Laws (Bokeem Woodbine, playing a clichéd role with a genuine sense of escalating menace), does ask, though, right at the start, and Ellis lies. Once his fellow recruits suspect he's gay after a harmless incident in the showers, Ellis becomes the target of harassment, sabotage, and violence, as Laws, squad leader Harvey (McCaul Lombardi), and others try to force him out of the Marines. Rosales (Raúl Castillo), another instructor, becomes the only lifeline Ellis has, beyond the strength of his own character.

The obvious framing of this story, perhaps, is the misery of Ellis' experience, as well as a tough critique of the systemic prejudice that's barely beneath the surface of this institution (Our protagonist isn't the only target, since one recruit of Middle Eastern descent, played by Eman Esfandi, finds himself in a similar situation). Those elements are here, of course, and unavoidable, particularly when Laws shows just how far he's willing to go in his efforts to remove Ellis from his squad of recruits. Bratton isn't going for that simple a point, though.

Neither is that point how Ellis goes about changing hearts and minds by being among the best of the squad, helping fellow recruits and Rosales through their personal problems, and standing up to the likes of Laws and Harvey. There are simply some people for whom nothing will ever be good enough, and when those people are family either by birth or by circumstance, ignoring or dismissing or rejecting them is no easy task. Pope's performance is notable for how well he communicates that internal conflict.

The Inspection itself is primarily about that. By the time those photographs and some brief pieces of real-life information and that dedication arrive at the end, we have a sense of Bratton wrestling with contradictory ideas and feelings about these two families who shape Ellis and, obviously have shaped the filmmaker. It's not about condemnation. It's about embracing these people and institutions—but only as much as they're willing to be embraced and to the extent that they deserve it.

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