The Story:
The Inspection is based on director Elegance Bratton’s experiences in the Marine Corps, so I expected the film to be much better than it is.
Jeremy Pope plays Ellis French, a black gay man who enlists in the Marine Corps because he feels he has nowhere else to turn. His mother, played by Gabrielle Union, can’t accept the fact that he’s gay and won’t let him in her apartment. When he asks for his birth certificate, she gives it to him saying that it’s null and void if the Marines can’t change him.
Ellis joins the Marines, and the rest of the film plays out like any other military movie. There’s the hard ass sergeant, played by Bokeem Woodbine, grueling drills, the requisite shower scene, and friendships formed. The only difference between The Inspection and films like An Officer and a Gentleman is that Ellis is gay.
Bratton spends too much time trying to make the viewer feel something using music and images rather than focusing on the relationships Ellis forms in the Marines. Many of the surrounding characters, Woodbine’s Seargent Laws in particular, feel very one note. Seargent Laws is homophobic and is bent of ensuring that Ellis fails. And since Laws and Ellis never have a meaningful confrontation, it feels a bit contrived when Sgt. Laws stands up for Ellis at the end of the film.
Pope does a good job portraying Ellis, but the script doesn’t give him enough substance to fully realize the character. Like so much of The Inspection, Ellis feels partially developed. The relationship he has with his mother is complicated and would make for a good story, but it suffers from the story not allowing her to truly come to life. Union is passable as Ellis’ mother, but she’s not given the opportunity to shine.
The pacing is also off due to Bratton trying too hard to give The Inspection an artsy feel and mood. The soundtrack would feel more at home in a suspense film than a drama and took me out of the story while slowing down the plot. The movie has a realistic ending that suffers from lack of character development.
Final Thoughts:
Despite good performances from Jeremy Pope and Gabrielle Union, I can’t recommend The Inspection. The pacing is bad, the mood is wrong, and the overall story needs work.