The Inspection

In a poetic narrative feature debut based on his own life story, director Elegance Bratton paints a portrait of a Black gay man embarking on self-discovery in the Marines.

At the age of 16, Ellis French (Jeremy Pope) was kicked out of his home by his conservative mother, Inez, for being gay. Now 25 with nowhere to go but the streets French decides to enlist in the Marines. Hoping that graduating from training camp will finally earn him the love and acceptance he craves from his mother. Even though he is signing up to be killed in combat, dying in a uniform will give him the meaning he is searching for.

Ellis arrives at a boot camp where he must keep his sexual orientation a secret during a time when the military practiced “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”. At first, French fits in amongst his fellow recruits but after an incident during shower time, Ellis outs himself. He becomes a target of constant abuse and is isolated. The leader of the group uses homophobic slurs toward him and at one point he is beaten by those around him. He does make some friends such as Ismail, who is hated for his Middle Eastern background, and drill instructor Rosales. French endures the punishments that come his way to avoid expulsion.

Bratton centers on the experience of how a queer man navigates a world full of aggressive masculinity. The film skips any grand moments or speeches and opts for a more sensitive story on the difficulty of every day for someone like French. Before he is ousted from the group, French forces himself into the closet as a survival tactic leaving him at a middle ground for how he wants to be seen and who he wants to be. This internal conflict is where the film succeeds in its exploration.

When the film breaks away from the military focus and dives into queer exploration it feels inventive of the army-drama film genre. It is almost a Venn diagram between masculinity and homoeroticism. Close-ups of sweat and distance only one moment away from becoming sexual and the danger within make for a thrilling watch. The military barrack turns into a gay club through the use of a pulsing score and bisexual lighting leading up to a terrifying moment for French. Pope plays French so naturally in his navigation of queerness adding more substance to make this a lived-in experience. A brilliant performance of nonverbal acting just through his eyes by signaling fear and then switching to seduction.

This intimate look into the US military under “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” is a promising beginning for Bratton’s career in narrative features.