When Jordan Davis’s mother got a phone call on November 23, 2012, the first thing she asked was “Where is Jordan? What has happened to Jordan?” Her instinctual reaction speaks to the reality facing all mothers of young black men in America: that one day, they may not come home. Jordan Davis was one of those boys.
Parking beside Davis in a gas station in Jackson, Florida, 46-year-old Michael Dunn initiated a confrontation with the unarmed 17-year-old, claiming his music was “too loud”. Three-and-a-half minutes later, Dunn had shot and killed the teen.
Director and activist Marc Silver (Los Invisibles, Who is Dayani Cristal?) gains access to Michael Dunn’s trial and recordings of Dunn’s phone calls from jail. The audio is damning – Dunn is deluded and arrogant, calling the young black man he killed “entitled” in one breath, “a thug” the next – a word Tevin Thompson, Davis’s friend, succinctly dissects.
“Thug is the new N-word,” he seethes. “It’s a way of people being racist without saying the N-word.”
Using still and lingering close-ups in the courtroom, Silver captures every lip wobble, every hesitation, every flash of anger at the outrageous defence attorney – but he also captures the warmth in the eyes of Davis’s friends when speaking of him. Emotive interviews with Davis’s parents add to the humane portrait of the teen, who comes to stand for so much more.
As the Black Lives Matter movement protests Davis’s killing and gun fanatics unblinkingly defend Florida’s Stand Your Ground laws, Silver contextualises Davis’ s killing as a tragic result of America’s racism and ideological divides.
Evocative but never didactic, Silver’s film makes for brilliantly compelling viewing.