Saw Street Fight, an extremely dramatic look at the Newark mayoral race of 2004 between incumbent Sharpe James and Corey Booker, both black democrats. The film mostly follows the Booker camp, not by choice apparently, but because any attempt to film James is instantly shut down by city police. From the start, Booker is the underdog. Rumors of corruption swirl around Mayor James and without any means of access, those rumors are left unchallenged. As the race draws closer and tightens, things get dirty. Booker's blackness is called into question. He's accused of being gay and (for some reason) Jewish. The tension mounts incredibly as the election draws to a close.
The documentary is fascinating, providing a literally street-level view of the Booker campaign. I wish we could have seen the other side. Was Booker's team tearing down James signs as the James team was Booker's? It's extremely frustrating at parts but, you know, this is how the sausage is made even in the relatively small-potatoes race for Mayor. The aftermath, after the film ends, is a comforting epilogue to the whole thing.
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