Judas and the Black Messiah is a confounding film. I might be the only one who thinks so, as unqualified praise pours in from everywhere. Critically lauded, nominated for major awards, and no doubt a good primer on Fred Hampton and the Black Panthers, Judas and the Black Messiah nevertheless seems to me an uneasy combination of memorable scenes and rote ones, of powerful fact-based material and overly familiar genre film contrivances.

Of course, it’s possible I expected too much. Finally, after waiting to see Judas and the Black Messiah ever since it was announced back in 2019, here it is on HBO Max. And, admittedly, it’s exhilarating to see the charismatic Daniel Kaluuya (Get Out) as Fred Hampton, chairman of the Illinois chapter of the Black Panthers, delivering lines from Hampton’s electrifying speeches like his triumphant “I am a revolutionary!” call and response.

He’s the “Black Messiah” foretold and feared by racist FBI director J. Edgar Hoover (played in monster makeup by Martin Sheen), who’s obsessed with Hampton’s rapidly growing status as an extraordinarily effective socialist organizer. Hampton’s building of the Rainbow Coalition from the Puerto Rican Young Lords and the Appalachian Young Patriots into a revolutionary movement was more than enough to sound all the right alarm bells in American halls of power.