Keys to the City (2019)
(On TV, April 2022) My reaction in watching the first few moments of Keys to the City on BET Channel was one of surprise – a political movie about a mayoral campaign? On my trashy-thriller BET? What’s the catch? I thought I was getting a better handle on the film once it revealed that our likable young protagonist was running against his own father – aha, family drama! But that merely completed the log-line of the film: it didn’t quite reveal what the story was really about. That comes maybe 20–30 minutes in the film, as our mayoral candidate gets involved with a campaign staffer with underlying issues. What could have been interpreted as a kinda-cute romantic obsession with the protagonist eventually reveals itself to be a violent lust for revenge, and that’s when we finally recognize Keys to the City as the kind of film we love to watch on BET – a slightly unhinged thriller that doesn’t really care about plausibility as long as the basic components of suspense are in place. Once you figure that out, the rest of the film becomes more entertaining. This isn’t about politics (especially at the most surface level) as much as it’s about family drama and a psychotic stalker – very familiar territory for BET channel. Kamal Angelo Bolden stars as the political hopeful, with Isaiah Washington as the mentor/opponent and the attractive Felisha Cooper as the romantic threat. Writer-director Tangie B. Moore gets the plot pieces moving slowly, but eventually works the film to a frenzied pitch of insanity right in time for the over-the-top finale, complete with an extra twist revelation that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense but works within the wild context of the film. Slightly better-than-average-for-BET production values make the film acceptable to watch on a technical level. Keys to the City isn’t meant to be serious, respectable or particularly refined – the antagonist is crazy for the sake of being crazy and while that’s fun, it’s not exactly the kind of thing that elevates the material. I don’t care all that much, though: the BET Channel brand of films (whether they’re made exclusively for the channel, or put in regular rotation) is about fun thrillers not to be taken seriously, and I got that in spades here… even if it kept me guessing for a few delicious minutes.