The Force

Directed by Peter Nicks

Release Year: 2017
Running time: 93
Country: U.S.
Language: English
$14.97 - Classroom Rights
MSRP: $29.95
$349.00 - With PPR
$499.00 - With DSL
$499.00 - With DSL and PPR
MSRP: $599.00
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Directed by: Peter Nicks

Sprawling, immediate, and complex, Peter Nicks’s vérité documentary moves like a pulsing, timely thriller. In 2014, after over a decade of federal monitoring for misconduct and civil rights abuses, the Oakland Police Department hires Chief Sean Whent … in hopes of bridging an historically tense divide between its officers and the community they serve. The Force captures everything; it hovers over Oakland’s evening skies and rides inside speeding police vehicles, granting viewers breathless firsthand access to some of law enforcement’s most dangerous jobs. With fly-on-the-wall intimacy, we see a department trapped in transition, desperate to shed its corrupt image but also challenged by an increasingly organized and urgent Black Lives Matter movement erupting right outside its doorstep.

Reviews

"Hypnotic and eye-opening. The Force has the texture of a Michael Mann film combined with the clarity of a Frederick Wiseman documentary. I could have watched it for hours more."

- – Bilge Ebiri, Village Voice
 

“An urgent chronicle that captures the deep ruptures in our communities. Riveting and resonant.”

- – Anthony Kaufman, Indiewire
 

“Gripping. Inspiring. Brutally honest.”

- – Tim Grierson, Screen Daily
 

“Takes us behind the blue wall, offering a poignant, realistic sense of the difficulties and challenges of modern policing.”

- – Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times
 

“A penetrating, you-are-there look at the men and women in blue that patrol the Bay Area.”

- – Charles Bramesco, Rolling Stone
 

"The Force is a gripping, broad-spectrum nonfiction drama that stuns with its sublime mastery of intelligent storytelling.”

- – Chris Barsanti, Film Journal
 

“Engrossing. Absorbing. Crystal-clear. The Force examines one of the most talked about issues in America from an ideal vantage point."

- – Tony Hinds, The Film Stage
 

Awards

Directing Award, U.S. Documentary – Sundance Film Festival 2017

 

Best Bay Area Documentary– San Francisco International Film Festival

 

Courage in Cinema Prize – Independent Film Festival Boston

 

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