I’m Charlie Walker Review: Good Cast Left Hanging By Underbaked Script
It's the opinion of this critic that when a movie doesn't land for someone, the viewing experience is more likely to be frustrating if they can envision a version of it that would have. I'm Charlie Walker is a good test of that hypothesis. The new film from director Patrick Gilles aspires to many different paths for itself, ranging from Spike Lee-esque didactic fiction to a Blaxploitation homage, and it assembles a cast with the talent to realize that vision. But, in practice, none of these go beyond the level of overture and it settles into something resembling reenactments in a TV documentary. The paths for a better, more interesting movie are almost always visible, but I'm Charlie Walker never steps in their direction, too confident in a script that is still a few passes away from reaching its potential.
As one might guess from the title, the movie follows Charlie Walker (Mike Colter), a Black trucker in an early '70s San Francisco landscape that clearly doesn't want him there. After maneuvering his way into business, he finds himself with an opportunity for success in 1971, when two tankers owned by Standard Oil collide in the San Francisco Bay and spill hundreds of thousands of gallons of crude oil. The cleanup operation is so big that, to racists' chagrin, Charlie ends up managing a beach of his own — which, by sheer luck, ends up a pollution epicenter. Knowing the establishment is unlikely to let him come out on top, the wily protagonist moves to not only outperform his competition, but put him in the best position possible for the inevitable confrontation with the executive in charge, Mr. Bennett (Dylan Baker).
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