CREDIT WHERE it’s due, this one feels like the whole team involved went the extra yard in telling a legendary story we should all have known already. Get the popcorn ready.
Everyone loves a TV programme that is brilliantly shot,nothing spared, every moment and detail matters.
Add to that a subject matter and cast that can deliver and you are ticking a lot of the right boxes.
That’s Lawmen: Bass Reeves in a nutshell.
A standout element of the narrative for me, is that progressive mindsets can be born in even the most regressive and asinine of situations.
Acknowledging the achievements, life and times of Bass Reeves is only possible because of the mindset of a white man who was disconnected enough from the morally unhinged status quo of the time, that he was able to identify genius when all around him only saw ineptitude.
That’s how Reeves is able to be celebrated today as one of the first first African American US Deputy Marshals, the first west of Mississippi River.
Whether the history books (which detail Reeves arresting over 3,000 outlaws during the course of his career) exist to accurately reference how Reeves came to have the position or not, matters little. It’s fairly clear he would have needed to get the nod from a group of white men.
Setting to one side for a second whether or not their intentions in promoting Reeves was for genuine reasons or just a self-serving agenda, the idea that together they were stronger, garnered greater momentum towards a common goal than remaining divided.
Everyone who played a role in this was great but a special mention must go out to lead actor and Executive Producer David Oyelowo.
From literally the first scene he means business.
Before even reading about how extensively he’d researched Bass Reeves, it was clear this matters.
Reading the following from show creator, writer and Executive Producer, Chad Feehan, didn’t surprise me.
“As we near the finish line of post-production, my being honoured and humbled is only overshadowed by my gratitude for David Oyelowo.
His performance is spectacular, his will is eternal, his collaborative spirit is graceful.”
I concur. He’s brilliant.
Lawmen: Bass Reeves is streaming on Paramount+ Sundays from 5th November.
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Thinking, and reasoning men and women of all skin-colours, ought to know, and acknowledge, the success of the Western European Caucasian man, is entirely infused with assistance from Native Americans: Africans, and Asian people.
Therefore, another film about the first African-skinned man, or woman is of little significance, worth, or value.