Naomi Harris stars in Black and Blue, but she’s backed up by an incredible ensemble cast that includes Mike Colter (Luke Cage) Nafessa Williams (Black Lightning), and Frank Grillo (Captain America: The Winter Soldier). Colter plays a ruthless criminal kingpin, while Grillo plays his opposite number in the police force, a crooked cop who uses the plight of post-Katrina New Orleans to line his own pockets with blood money. Meanwhile, Williams plays a gangster’s moll who quietly laments the righteous path she was too scared to take when she was but a young girl.
Black and Blue could have been a fairly standard cop movie, but it’s elevated by its approach to racial and gender dynamics; it’s the first-ever studio film to feature an African-American woman playing a cop in a leading role, and Naomi Harris delivers an excellent performance as a woman who tries to exist as a human being in a world that is so divided by racial tensions and the animosity between the police force and the community they’re supposed to serve.
At a press day for Black and Blue, Screen Rant sat down with Mike Colter, Nafessa Williams, and Frank Grillo to discuss their roles in the film, and the themes embodied by their characters. They discuss their approach to playing three-dimensional villains who could be easily defined by their cruelty but who instead carry a surprising amount of depth and humanity, despite their status as „bad guys.“ They also talk about how refreshing it is to see an action movie carried by a woman, which remains rare in Hollywood, even in 2019. Black and Blue is out now in theaters nationwide.
Mike Colter and Nafessa Williams and Frank Grillo Black and Blue Press Day