I actually thought this was decent. Seemed like it could be heading for a positive message of compassionate understanding, but instead abruptly confirms that the stereotypical white racist cop is just a bloodthirsty killer. This is propaganda, pure and simple, and only helping in further tearing apart the fabric of american society.

I initially gave this movie a 4/10 and wrote a review that argued that while the premise of the short was interesting; the execution of it was brought down by the caricatural depiction of the issue. It felt like the slogan All Cops Are Bastard made into a movie, but without nuance. And without the understanding of how bad and reductive it is to boil down a rather intricate issue into a four word slogan.

Then I read about and subsequently watched Groundhog Day For A Black Man. It is an excellent four minutes video, that is well made, to the point and most importantly funny and creative. It had the social commentary, the political message, yet, it focuses on the absurdity of the situation. It is peak comedy, as it takes a regular issue and exaggerates and extrapolates it to the extreme over the top ridicule. And, in that deformed reality where nothing makes sense anymore it finds the essence of the issue, it finds some sort of truth. It is fun, it is clever and it gets its point across elegantly.

This Two Distant Strangers is a plagiarized version of that video. But worse.

It is worse in every aspect. The only good addition is the scene where Carter decides not to venture outside, yet he still gets killed when the cops barge in the wrong appartement. That was clever and well extablished. The rest of it was blunt and poorly though-out.

It follows a time-loop structure, but why really? There is no character growth or different outcomes. There is no added texture with each iteration. There are no new angles or inputs throughout the short. The protagonist does not really try different strategies or various scenarios. This short is just a repetitive exercise with the outcome being the same whatever the circumstances. It uses the time-loop as a figurative hell, to symbolise that with every innocent bystander that gets murdered, black people re-live the same event over and over. I do not think that it is that clever or powerful. Black-ish already showed it and expressed it way better. I think this is an abuse of the time-loop trope and it is insulting how blunt and condescending this short is.

Moreover, this short, in a typical viral clickbait website fashion, exhibits an over-emphasis on violence, which I personally find disturbing. Not the violence itself, but the fetishization of it. The gruesomeness of the scenes, the repetitiveness, are intended to oversaturate you sense and provoke disgust. But, the length to which they do it point to an unhealthy fascination that feels manipulative more than anything else. At one moment, someone suggests that the antagonists should talk to each other. They try, but it immediately reverts to brutal violence anyway. It would be sick if it would not be comically absurd.

You end up with a short that is very superficial, and has nothing to offer but a bitter and cynical worldview. If you put aside the style and the message, the difference with Groundhog Day For A Black Man and why it is superior to this, is that it offered redemption. It had empathy. This short is devoid of it.

"Two Distant Strangers" is an American live action short film from 2020, so still relatively recent and this one took home the Oscar not too long ago. But let's stay with the basics first: The director and co-writer here was Travon Free, kinda fitting name, also without the y. It runs for minimally over 30 minutes and the poster here on imdb already makes it fairly obvious what to expect: a film on race. Not a bad thing by any means, but the execution here left me kinda shocked with how much this film was trying to deliver in terms of current political correctness. On the other hand, now having seen this, I cannot say I am surprised that liberal Hollywood honored this one. One could probably write 10k words about all that is wrong with the outcome here, but I will try to stay more focused and just elaborate on the most obvious flaws. First of all, it is of course true that this was not the most groundbreaking idea and premise. Then again, with the quantity of (short) films out there, you cannot really blame them for that. A little more uniqueness would have been nice though. The real issue, however, is basically where this film elaborates on racism. You even see the name George Floyd written on the screen on one occasion. I mean I am by no definition approving of what happened to him and I wish he was alive because he did not deserve what was coming his way, but it's pretty absurd to treat him as a saint. He was the exact opposite of the educated, tolerant man we see here, the one who compliments women, opens the door for others and is successful with his creative profession. Please. Things got especially awkward when we have the "I can't breathe" moment basically reenacted when our "hero" loses his life for the very first time.

Things keep going on in the same direction. It is always the evil White police officer who kills the innocent Black man. Kinda telling us that this is something that happens constantly. I also have a feeling that the protagonist here is not a drug addict and that he would not exactly threaten a mother with killing her unborn baby. Just a thought though. The protagonist's statement on how the only ones happy to see police officers are White people and other police officers is also as racist as it gets. Besides, it totally ignores the fact that there are many Black men in the police and also the percentage of crimes commited by Whites (I may capitalize that?) does not equal the percentage of Whites in the American population. This is something the film tried to have us forget by elaborating on how they are born into different economic backgrounds. Okay, this is not incorrect I give them that. There are many other moments when it's unwatchable. Of course, the situation in the real world right now is shocking enough for them to not give us a happy ending. When we think he finally did it, then he is simply murdered in cold blood once again. Yeah right. And the loop continues. Oh my. Of course, the girl also believes him immediately with this absurd story. I mean he has his evidence. But still. And pretty arrogant to state with determination that he is smarter than the police officer after how he just got played so hard seconds earlier. Also, what's with the gun reference? If Blacks carry firearms, it's justified and appropriate and when Whites do it, it's evil NRA?

In addition, you should not mistake elements like the broken vase (or what it was) or the wrong number (six/nine) at the door for decent attention to detail. I thought this was a truly uninspired movie overall. Without the blatant political messages in here, I maybe could have given it two more stars, but it's just not possible. Also kinda sad they use this pretty good Tupac Shakur song for the closing credits. May he rest in peace. Also, it has never been solved 100%, but look at all the suspects' ethnicities when it comes to the murder of the latter. This is where the real problem is. My message to everybody who reads this and watches the movie too is that you should not let emotions cloud your judgments. Stick to facts and figures and you will find the real truth. The one that is missing entirely from this make-believe movie. Highly not recommended. Don't be tricked by characters telling you they fall in love too quickly into thinking this ia touching portrayal. Or by the writers here basically telling us White police officers are worse than dogs. I have no (more) words for the outcome here. Let alone for the awards attention it received. Utterly shameful. I'm also sure you could add a lot more to those people whose names we see before the closing credits and the situations and circumstances in which they were killed. I guess they did include these and not the ones killed by other Black people because they did not want to make a full feature film. That's it now. This is a film you wanna skip 100% unless you are working on an essay on the subject of how film tricks (and sadly often succeeds with) people (into) adjusting to certain patterns when it comes to their train of thought. I applaud you if you see through this. Standing up against manipulative make-believe must not be taken for granted in the 21st century.