892

Brian Brown-Easley’s story is the kind of thing that seems like it should be a movie, but is actually a challenge to turn into one. In 2017, the former marine lance corporal entered a bank, told everyone he had a bomb, and asked all but two employees to leave. He didn’t want to rob the bank or get a helicopter out of the country. He simply wanted the US Department of Veterans Affairs (the VA) to return the modest but significant-to-him money that was deducted from his benefits check.

Abi Damaris Corbin’s 892 dramatises the events of the fateful day of the hostage situation, portraying them in a way that fees more instructive than resonant. The formulaic thriller is an acting showcase more than anything else, particularly for star John Boyega. So it’s fitting that the film received an award for its ensemble cast in the Sundance Film Festival US Dramatic competition.

The cast also includes the great Michael K Williams in his last performance before his tragic death, as a hostage negotiator who is the only law-enforcement officer who actually seems interested in getting Brian out alive. (For himself, the hostage-taker does not expect to make it out. He’s black, and when the employee tells him the last guy who tried to rob the bank was arrested, he muses that “he must have been white”.) Selenis Leyva and Nicole Beharie round out the core cast as the two bank employee hostages, and ably balance concern for their own safety with sympathy for Brian’s plight.

Obviously the incident serves an indictment of bureaucracy in the VA and of law enforcement officers who are all too eager to shoot. But the filmmakers are so wrapped up in the importance of the social issues, that they forget to come up with anything to say about them. Perhaps a film that was more willing to dig behind the scenes at the VA, or to spend more time with Williams’s negotiator, would have been able to tap into more truth about systemic failures.

Instead, we’re anchored to Brown-Easley, who is clearly disturbed and mentally unstable, hence not a reliable narrator. Boyega acts the hell out of the role, but the character is never able to deliver the perspective needed to create a truly satisfying drama. This results in an aimless recounting with bullet-points news articles about the event scattered amongst the dialogue. Flashbacks, news crew interactions and other elements fail to add context, and instead feel like padding.

It’s a shame, because 892 has such a strong cast and fascinating story. There was surely a way to tell it that would given more resonance to Brown-Easley’s story, but this attempt doesn’t quite live up to the task.