Director: Malik Vitthal
Writer: Nicholas McCarthy, Richmond Riedel (Screenplay)
Starring: Mary J Blige, Nat Wolff, David Zayas, Anika Noni Rose, David Warshofsky, Ian Casselberry, Philip Fornah
Plot: When a routine traffic stop results in the unexplained, grisly death of her colleague, a cop (Mary J. Blige) realizes footage of the incident will play for her eyes only. As the attacks mount, she races to understand the supernatural force behind them.
Tagline – Protect. Serve. Survive.
Runtime: 1 Hour 36 Minutes
There may be spoilers in the rest of the review
Story: Body Cam starts in the backdrop of a police officer getting off a shooting, with the neighbourhood raising tensions because of this, an officer is mysteriously and violently killed on a routine car check, Renee Lomito-Smith (Blige) has just returned to active duty since an incident and her own personal loss takes rookie Danny Holledge (Wolff) under her wing.
Renee starts trying to investigate the incident, which will lead her to Taneesha Branz (Rose), but when the incidents continue to happen around the city, the mystery about why the supernatural moments are happening continues to build.
Thoughts on Body Cam
Characters & Performances – Renee Lomito-Smith is a police officer that has been off active duty for 8 months after punching a civilian, she has been grieving the loss of her child too, now she is being reinstated for the first time, taking a rookie under her wing and getting right back into the action when a fellow officer is killed in mysterious circumstances, with only Renee being able to see the footage on the bodycam, which only leaves her with more questions, in a case she is taking personally. Mary J Blige might well be more known for her musical skills, stepping into this role, she does do everything right through the film, even if there are moments where we could have a bigger emotional impact of the events. Danny Holledge is the rookie cop that is assigned to work with Renee, he has been working with other officers, but struggles with what the pair start seeing around the city. Nat Wolff is solid in this role, it starts as more of a routine character before getting to the more intense side in the second half of the film. We do get to meet plenty of other officers, most of who Renee trusts, who become the victims of the crimes, a mysterious woman that seems to be around the crimes more often than not. Each performances is what the film needs without giving us the shock value we could get from their scenes.
Story – The story here follows a police officer that is returning to active duty after the death of her son and an incident with a civilian, her first night she is assigned a rookie and gets called out for a strange murder of a police officer, which leads to an investigation that only she can see the evidence to expose the truth. This story does get to blend the police brutality going on, with the ghost investigation type story, showing us one character guided by haunting of what happened, which will get her to learn more about the truth along the way. It does become routine in how everything unfolds and quickly loses the tension built up between the public and the police, which is established in the opening sequence.
Themes – Body Cam is a horror that mixes the reality of the modern world, with the haunting and bloody deaths happening to the police connected to an investigation, which will give the warnings about doing the right thing even after a mistake.
Body Cam is a horror that comes close to reality with how it handles the killings in a bloody and gruesome way.
