YNOT at the Movies

The US Marine probably has the most handsome uniforms, which may make young people want to join it. But before you can become a Marine, you must complete and pass the brutal boot camp training. That boot camp may stop many youngsters from considering joining the Marine. But if you are at the end of the rope and have no other options, you might just have to bite the bullet. If you survive the boot camp, you might have a new life and career. That's exactly what happened to the writer-director Elegance Bratton in 2005, as a 26-year-old gay black homeless person. He turned his personal experiences in the boot camp into his feature narrative debut "The Inspection" (USA 2022 | 95 min.). Luckily, Elegance Bratton survived the training and the Marines turned him into a filmmaker.

After being kicked out of home for being gay at the age of 16, Ellis French (Jeremy Pope) has been homeless for about ten years. Seeing no other way out of it, he comes back to his mom Inez (Gabrielle Union) to get his birth certificate in order to join the Marine.

Once he arrives at the boot camp, Ellis and other recruits are greeted with screaming trainers, led by sadistic Sgt. Laws (Bokeem Woodbine). 2005 is the era of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," so Ellis must conceal his homosexuality in an environment that is homophobic yet ironically, homo erotic for him.

The training is barbarous, the culture is toxic, and the hope is crumbling. Before too long, Ellis is found to be gay and becomes an easy target for bullying. Of course, homophobia is not the only negative experience Ellis encounters. Another recruit Ismail (Eman Esfandi) is also a frequent bullying target for being a Muslim. Both as victims in the camp, Ismail becomes one of the very few friends Ellis has.

But not all the trainers and recruits act mean as a way to express their masculinity. One of the instructors, Rosales (Raúl Castillo), seems not as harsh as others, which provokes Ellis to have some fantasy about him in a super stressful setting.

Given the unbearable situations, you might wonder why Ellis wants to stick around. Perhaps he wants to make his mom proud, and hopes that she will take him back as his son. Besides, what other choice does he have?

The director Elegance Bratton tells a very personal story of a time before gays can serve openly in the military. The film takes us into a Marine training camp that we don't see often, where everyone is yelling and screaming, instead of talking. The screaming becomes repetitive and obnoxious as it rarely stops in the film. Does the director make this film just to scare others into joining the Marine? It's definitely not a pleasant place to be, unless you are into such an abusive setting. The film never establishes the true motivations for Ellis to endure all the hardship, or tells us what his inspiration is to make it.

Jeremy Pope gives a superb performance as the tormented Ellis, who tries so hard to be accepted by the Marine, as well as his mother. But by the end of the film, all you can take away is that Jeremy Pope looks extremely good in that marine uniform.

"The Inspection" opens in the San Francisco Bay Area on Wednesday, November 23, 2022.