The Hard Stop (2015)

In August 2011, 29-year-old Mark Duggan was shot and killed whilst being arrested by armed police in Tottenham, London.

This incident ignited a riot that escalated into a week of the worst civil unrest in recent British history.

His childhood friends, Marcus and Kurtis struggle to come to terms with the death of their friend - whilst also waiting to see if the inquest into his shooting will provide them with a satisfactory version of the truth........

To have the documentary be almost exclusively be from the point of view of Marcus and Kurtis, could be viewed as very one sided, but this was a lawless killing, and the outcome of the inquest is almost borderline parody, as it reminisces the court scene in J.F.K.

It pretty much sums up the huge mistake that the police made, the ways they tried to cover it up, and how this tension between the police and the African-Caribbean community has been gradually rising since the mid-eighties.

It's a very tough watch, especially in the early scenes where we are shown footage of the incident, and paramedics obviously performing cardio-pulmonary resuscitation on Duggan.

And this poor man was killed because of simple discrimination, just because someone dresses or talks a certain way, doesn't mean that they are about to commit a crime of any sort.

It's documentaries like this that show that the media brainwash the masses, that people paint others with the same brush. And it's true, anybody who went on holiday with their grandparents in the eighties and nineties always made fun of the Germans, because of something that happened a long time ago.

This proves that this killing was nothing more than a racially motivated attack by the police, and there's no two ways of saying it any different.

Marcus and Kurtis are almost numb with grief throughout most of the film, knowing that it could have easily been anyone of them in that car, and they would have received the same treatment as their friend.

It's no,wonder that there is so much hatred out there against the authorities, with every officer/ex officer who wants to make a difference, there is the one who let's the power go to their head.

It's a strong documentary with some very haunting imagery throughout, but all the while having that wonderful feel of a having a community united with grief, but most of all love.

Quite brilliant.