Small Axe – Red, White and Blue (UK 2020)

The third film in the Small Axe ‘anthology’ is a form of biopic about the early working life of Leroy Logan. Logan is a hero figure who spent thirty years as a Metropolitan police officer, entering as a graduate recruit in 1983 and retiring as a Superintendent in 2013. He is played by John Boyega, the young actor who has become a major celebrity figure because of his roles in three recent Star Wars films. In 2020 his status was confirmed when he spoke to crowds during a Black Lives Matter campaign rally in London. Written by Steve McQueen and Courttia Newland and photographed by Shabier Kirchner with music under the control of Mica Levi, this was the third of the films to enjoy festival screenings in the US. It appears to have been shot on film and is presented in the theatrical widescreen ratio of 1:1.85. Compared to Lovers Rock, which was shot digitally and presented in the TV ratio of 16:9, film was presumably used for Red, White and Blue because more of the narrative uses exteriors? Unsurprisingly it turns out to be as successful in its storytelling and in terms of performances and techniques as the first two films. Why then do I feel slightly less ‘engaged’ or sympathetic towards the film?

I think the answer lies primarily in the ideas behind the story and how these have been worked out in the approach adopted by McQueen. I was taken by a review I read after I saw the film when it was first broadcast. It was the first of the five films that I watched, all the others came later via iPlayer. Sight & Sound invited Gary Younge, the celebrated former Guardian journalist and now Professor of Sociology at the University of Manchester, to review the film. Younge is very astute about issues within Black communities in the UK and the US and he argues that Logan’s initial aim on joining the police was always going to be problematic. Younge articulates this eloquently:

Logan, played by John Boyega, says he has applied to the force to “combat negatives”, and feels “he’s got to be a bridge”. But the negatives are everywhere, which means the bridge he seeks to be can find no firm land on either side. And so the space in which he stands is suspended, without visible support, leaving him precarious and isolated, perched on a flimsy structure he has wished into being.

To appreciate Younge’s comment, we need to be aware that the time period in the film is not clearly signalled. The same is true of the location of the Logan family within London’s then distinct West Indian communities, (the Guardian article referenced below suggests that Logan was based in Islington but there is little sense of the location in the film). The ‘real’ Logan joined the Met in 1983. The film narrative begins when Logan is still a young boy in the early years of secondary school. Standing outside the school gates, waiting for his father to collect him the boy is questioned and searched by two police offers. When Kenneth Logan arrives he is angry about what he finds. This is presumably around 1968 or 1969 (Logan was born in 1957). We next meet the grown-up Leroy working in a science research laboratory, a couple of years out of university. This must be 1980 or 1981. Over the next few months he will begin the process of joining the Met. Why is timing so important? In January of 1981 a fire at a house party in New Cross killed several Black youths and was believed to be a racist attack. The police investigation was criticised as inadequate. In April 1981 anger about policing in Brixton in South London developed into the ‘Brixton Uprisings’ with thousands on the streets. Later in the summer of 1981 similar ‘uprisings’ occurred in Liverpool, Birmingham and several other UK cities. The police generally and the Met in particular were viewed with fear and mistrust by Black communities and significant parts of the general population. These events turn up in the next Small Axe film but aren’t evident in this film. We don’t see the most notorious form of police action either, that carried out by the SPG (Special Patrol Groups) which made the practice of ‘Stop and Search’ allowed under the ‘Sus’ laws, so hated because of its arbitrary use.

Leroy joins the police force partly in response to his father being beaten up by two police officers when he challenges their allegation that he has committed a parking offence. He is also encouraged by his ‘auntie’, a family friend who works as a police liaison officer and is the mother of Leroy’s friend Leee John. Leee is another ‘real’ character, at this time the leader of the successful Black soul/funk group Imagination whose chart peak was in 1982 with the No. 2 single ‘Just an Illusion’. Leroy is sent to the Police Training Centre at Hendon where he excels as a student but still meets racist ideas and does not subsequently progress in the force as someone with his qualifications and success at Hendon might expect. I didn’t see any reference in the Hendon sequence to the furore surrounding the case of John Fernandes, a lecturer from Kilburn Polytechnic who was assigned to teach a course at Hendon. Fernandes was so shocked by the racist comments police cadets made in essays he asked them to write that he showed them to journalists. The reaction of the police authorities was to suspend Fernandes and his employers at Kilburn took action to dismiss him until action by grassroots trade union members in the lecturers’ union NATFHE prevented this. Ironically, the real Leroy Logan later found himself acting in the investigation into the handling of the Stephen Lawrence case, the murder of a Black teenager in 1993 which again showed the Met accused of inadequate and institutionally racist policing.

All five Small Axe films focus on a ‘moment’ in the history of West Indians in the UK in the 1970s and 1980s. In most cases this moment becomes a narrative that produces an optimistic ‘possibility’ of a better future. How does that work in this film? If we compare the first and last sequences of Red, White and Blue they both feature Kenneth and Leroy – father and son. The conflict between first and second generation migrants is a familiar element of migrant stories. In the opening sequence after Kenneth has discovered the police treatment of his son, he starts to talk to the boy who asks to turn off ‘This World Is Not My Home’ by Jim Reeves on the cassette player and he replaces it with ‘Tainted Love’ by Gloria Jones (which causes his father to turn off the music altogether). This sums up a family conflict, perhaps too obviously? For the rest of the film, father and son will remain distanced. In the final scene (apologies for the spoiler, but this is a biopic so we know that Leroy survives to become successful), Leroy sits and drinks rum with his father. Kenneth now appears a broken man but he explains that he must accept that Leroy has got the education that the family has urged him to do. His father must now accept that Leroy had the right to choose to become a police officer. The narrative seems to have justified Leroy but possibly diminished Kenneth. Is this optimistic? I think what I took from this story is that Leroy attempts to do everything himself. The Metropolitan Police and its ‘canteen culture’ is so riddled with both institutional racism and overtly racist officers that Leroy’s crusade seems doomed. During his induction, when the new recruits are required to say a little about themselves, Leroy announces first that he “hasn’t joined to make friends”. This seems an odd way to set about his task. The events that follow then demonstrate that without support Leroy will find his police work very difficult (if not dangerous). Later on the ‘real’ Leroy Logan would become one of the founder members of the Black Police Association. This Guardian piece outlines some of the main points of Logan’s career in the Met and answers some of the puzzles I found in trying to read the film. Leroy Logan is credited as a consultant on Red, White and Blue.

My wariness about this film is not meant to imply a criticism of Leroy Logan’s actions nor to suggest that this is a ‘bad film’. On the contrary, it is a film that works very well in its own terms, with strong performances and an exciting and gripping narrative. However, it is not like the other four films in its conception and I’m not sure that McQueen and Courtland approach it in the same way. The narrative doesn’t seem rooted in a specific West Indian community like the other stories. Leroy’s ‘difference’ does seem to be carried by the changes in music with Al Green and Marvin Gaye replacing the reggae tracks. I think in the end I wanted to know more about Kenneth’s story and about the others in the family and the wider community (which does appear briefly in Leroy’s attempts to talk to local teenagers).