The Kritic’s Korner: The Movie “Life,” Then and Now

Life is a movie about how two Black men named Ray and Claude are treated in prison. 

When Ray and Claude went to Mississippi from New York to get the money they owed, they were falsely accused of killing a Black man that conned them for their money when a white male sheriff actually did it. The judge didn’t take a second look at them before he said “Sentenced for life.” They got beaten and put on the chain gang, all because they were Black. Ray and Claude tried to escape but every time they failed and through the years they saw their friends die. The genre was a comedy, but it was showing the real racism of the 20th century.

This story corresponds with life in the modern-day because the judge and jury won’t bat an eye before they say a Black person is guilty and won’t hold the law enforcers accountable. This should be corrected by having a fair judge and a jury. In the U.S. the likelihood of a white man going to jail for life is one out of 17. However, the likelihood of a Black man being in prison is 1 out of 3. Black men make up 6.5 percent of the American population, but  40.2 percent of the prison population.

An example that proves this point is Kalief Browder. In 2010, he was going to a party in New York when he was stopped by the police for a crime he didn’t commit. According to the documentary “13TH”, 97 percent of people in jail never see a trial, and Kalief Browder is a part of this group. Throughout the years, his mental state started to deteriorate, and he got into more fights. The guards just added on to the madness when they would just throw him on the ground and beat him up. 

Two years, after his release, Kalief Browder killed himself. He was never given a trial. The regular case with Black men and boys is that the police will give them a deal where they can say they did it and only get three years, or they go to trial and get 30 years. Of course, people want the shorter sentence but what if they didn’t comment on the crime? Black people want to go to trial but most of the time they’re going to lose because of a corrupt judge and jury.

The movie Life took place 100 years ago, and the things that happened back in Jim Crow, like racism and white privilege, are still happening to this day. The worst part is that the whole world knows and won’t do anything about it. 

In Life, the police stopped Ray and Claude for a crime they did not commit; the main characters had an unfair court case and were sent to prison for their lives, and slowly went insane. The police stopped Kalief Browder for a crime he did not commit. He had an unfair court case and was sent to prison for three years and slowly went insane.

Karl Marx said “History repeats itself especially when you ignore it.”  If people band together and have a peaceful protest, we will eventually get there.