Review of The Inspection

There are some movies which take their own time in developing into something worthwhile and one has a choice of leaving it midway or keep hoping for the best. This is one such movie in this category which starts off showing a young black man (Ellis French) played by Jeremy Pope whose relationship with mom is strained to the point that she doesn't allow him to enter her home. (The reason is that he is gay and mom doesn't accept him that way.) He wants his birth certificate so he can join as a Marine and make his mom proud. So far so good. He gets into the marine training and we are exposed to extended scenes of the tough exercises schedule and life in barracks which we have seen many times in umpteen movies. (The tough drill Sergeant says that he doesn't care whether a person is straight or gay, black or white, his job is to turn him into a marine whom he calls "monsters" ) Such scenes carry on not just for 20 minutes or 40 minutes but for full 60 minutes. It is really a tough watch as the the storyline freezes and doesn't move forward. Finally after 60 minutes into the movie, there is a scene where he calls mom over for his graduation day and after some emotionally charged scenes between Ellis and his mom, the movie ends in a tame manner.

Director Elegance Bratton has put in a heavy overdose of marine training scenes in the first one hour which becomes monotonous, boring and off putting. The other scenes are too cliche ridden to make an impact. The story could have been made an emotional one for better acceptance by the average audience. No doubt Jeremy Pope has acted well and brings out his confused state effectively but other than this the movie drags and bores.