In a slightly alternate version of our reality, One USA hires Femi Jackson (Brandon Victor Dixon), a struggling analyst, to be its new CFO. One USA, which is a Democratic super PAC, is preparing to raise funds for its preferred candidate (and former director) Harold Roundtree (Orlando Jones) as the 2024 Iowa caucuses approach. While Femi's wife, Maria (Naturi Naughton), is not particularly enthusiastic. -ho for Roundtree, or any Democratic candidate for that matter, is happy with the promise of steady employment for Femi once again while he recovers from a hard bout of alcoholism
Femi sees a bit of himself in Roundtree, or at least that's what his financial blogger friend Ira Goldstein (Thomas Sadoski) tells him, sarcastically or not, but more importantly, he doesn't want to waste this second chance at a good professional career He pores over the earnings of One USA, which brings up patterns among donations... peculiar to singular people within the NGOs channeled by the PAC, and all in amounts that, one way or another, add up to the number 88.
Director: Eromose
Writer: Eromose
Stars: Shellye Broughton, Gregory Butler, Jonathan Camp
While Femi, far from being a numerologist, finds the coincidence very strange, however, his boss, the director of the PAC (Amy Sloan), ultimately sees them as inconsequential to her greater gains. Determined to find out more, Femi uses Ira's experience to dig deeper into donations. To her horror, they discover the importance of 88 in fascist symbolism and a possible dark money trail leading to an involved neo-Nazi organization.
But she doesn't add up: why would white supremacists want to put their money behind a black Democrat for US President? Determined to solve this riddle of political optics and avoid potential consequences at Roundtree, Femi and Ira continue to search for the truth, but discover that the path is far from a straight and narrow path.
One of 88's strengths is his unwavering sense of grounding. Even in his conspiracy-filled reality of The Parallax View and Southland Tales, he never veers into any of the hyperbolic mindsets of those movies. Eromose's vision of 2024 America feels quite tangible with the increased Democratic corporatization of him.
party, continually uncalculated social tensions over police violence and racial inequality, and a growing (ironic) hyper-awareness of identity politics due to its incorporation by neoliberal forces.
Of course, the film occasionally stays too grounded to the point of didactic, with its talking points like dialogue and history lesson info-dumps via slideshows, the latter of which is reminiscent of the work of Spike Lee. , but the Eromose presentations lack the same. tenacious energy. Some of its crude technicalities keep 88 grounded in the feel-amateur feel too, with its open-ended use of fisheye lenses annoyingly reminding us how perception can be distorted.
Despite that, Eromose overall manages to keep things temperate enough that it really feels like our own current reality with a slightly exaggerated twist.
The characters aren't larger than life, yet they have enough wit, zest, flaws, and cynicism that allows them to play with a lot of identification. Dixon carries through most of the film with an eager grace, having sardonic, no-nonsense chemistry in his scenes with Naughton and Sadoski (who in their own turns bring complete vitality to his roles). Even the minor, minor characters evoke a sense of verisimilitude in their fast-paced performances, like Jones as the patient and intelligent (and possibly willfully ignorant) Roundtree, and Elimu Nelson as the desperate but sincere Gutierrez.
The palpable hints of the plot of a sinister political cataclysm bubbling beneath the nation's surface are reminiscent of our own present and the anxieties we face living within late capitalism. Sometimes it might seem like a lot to process, but admitting that is itself a validation of the common thread of discourse of the last six years: there's a lot going on, and it's all stupid and scary in equal measure. 88 is just a reflection of the mess we Americans have gotten ourselves into when perverted public figures are too busy creating policies influenced by the forums' wildest fantasies that they don't see how capital is reworking their biases behind the scenes to get the upper hand. maximum economic benefit. control.
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