User Reviews

"The Current: The Story of George Stinney, Jr" is an American English-language live action short film from 2017 that runs for slightly over 20 minutes and tells us the story of the boy whose name is included in the title. He received a death sentence back in the 1940s (so near the end of World War II) because people thought he killed two young girls that he crossed paths with the very same day they disappeared. At least that is what the film shows us. I think this is so far back in time that I don't want to be the judge here if he did it or not. But in my opinion this is also not what the film is about, but instead it is about a teenage boy receiving a death penalty and that is a highly questionable decision. Even back then it was as we see with the Black guy who tries to get people to revoke this judgment. It was not meant to be though. There is a bit of a framework with the boy on the day of the execution and in-between we find out about the day of the crime, the police "investigating" and the decision of the jury and judge. I must say it bothered me a bit here how literally every single White character is depicted as an antagonist here. I did not like that. It is also not fact-based. What is fact-based is most of all that the boy was indeed executed. They elaborated on the actual execution with the help of a really famous work, namely "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" and there are other film version of this one here. It was an interesting idea and this was maybe when the film was at its best with the harmony and happiness that eventually proves to be fake when reality bites as harshly as it gets and we see the kid dying. However, it is also telling from a negative perspective, namely that the only time when this film really delivers is when they reach out to another really famous work/movie. So yeah the fact that thhis is partially based on actual events (really very vguely though) makes it a more interesting watch, but it is never the filmmaking achievement they want it to be. by the way, the subject of George Stinney seems to be an interesting one (maybe even en vogue, if you can call it that) because this is not the only film that has been made about this young man in the last 3 years. I wonder if they had also made these films if they boy was White (can I capitalize this like "Black"? I say yes!) and maybe would not have fit in this much with liberal Hollywood's agenda. Still this one got overlooked, which surprised me a bit because I would have though it is really up their alley. Maybe the (lack of) promotion was the problem. For me the problem was the lack of a filmmaker's vision by director Jamison Stalsworth here (kinda ironic how his name is so similar to a character from a recent Spike Lee movie, especially given both films' subjects) and it is enough of a negative dealbreaker, even if I won't deny that I considered giving it 3 stars out of 5 and this a positive recommendation. My final conclusion, however, is not to. It's not a failure by any means, but also not goof enough. I sugges you skip.