3rd attempt to write à review. Trying too hard to catch you by the collar and look you in the eye and tell you this: I Witnessed what may be the greatest performance an actor has ever delivered. I Challenge you to find dialogue and délivery of this monstrous size task-life and views of a man, a time, an iconoclastic era that seeks revolutionary change to save ones people,by natural means -deliverance by birthing the idea, execution, calling, societal position, weight of opposition, weight of emotional psychological pain -delivered through the limits of language. Roger Gueneur Smith has been in a lot of films Spike Lee choice often. Even was in a daytime soap for a goodly stint.But he is smart. He chose I imagine a hero,of his an under clarified man certainly unknown to most in 2015 but shook this country never to be heard from again if the continued smashing down of the true American history of the 1960's plays on. I lived in the Village in 'late'60's when I read Ramparts magazine's script of the Chicago 7 trial pertaining to Bobby Seale-Huey Newton's co founder of The Black Panther Party. The Harlem chapter came downtown and spoke at a church in Washington Square. I had been in the south prior to NYC all through it and heard the message of revolution in the air. Smith, how meticulous and thorough his writing. But the physicality, the dialogue his vicious 'in the way but it's OK' chain smoking deliverance-his dance- man I wish this was getting over to you. The man Huey P. Newton is your friend

A chain-smoking Huey P. Newton lights one cigarette after another, his mouth so dry that you can hear the sound of his tongue hitting the roof of his mouth. The film is one extended monologue of Huey's inner mind, concluding with an entrancing shadow boxing dance by Smith to Ballad of a Thin Man. Something really is happening, even if we don't know what it is. Identity and difference propel the "narrative," as per director Spike Lee's usual, given his desire to represent the real.To be sure information is imparted about Huey as if he were still alive, with allusions to President George W. Bush. Looking back, he passes judgment on Eric Clapton's '80s cover of Bob Marley's hit I Shot the Sheriff but today likes rap, and loves Vincent Price. With his thigh-shaking, cigarette-puffing manner, Smith cultivates Dr. Huey P. Newton who wrote his doctoral thesis on the Black Panthers at UC Santa Cruz and was killed in 1989. It's helmed by the first filmmaker that would come to anyone's mind to direct this material, Lee, the relentlessly socially conscious filmmaker known for tackling issues of Black American identity and racial politics as well as autobiographical themes. But in the grouping of New Territories, the film's well-placed in terms of subject but as a film it's a filmed staged production and fails to be ground-breaking.Were we fearful of having our bourgeois advantages taken away? Was it unfounded fear? Were they gun-toting terrorists or just one of several collective, anti-capitalist, anti-racist movements? Or was the left-wing politics simply window dressing for a colossal, radical trend-propelled deception? Well, you won't hit upon resolutions to many of these questions in this TV adaptation of Smith's one-man show, but you will get an impressive illustration of a man every trace as complicated and multifaceted as the movement he co-established. As depicted by Smith, Newton is at first withdrawn and tenderly soft-spoken. But as he loosens up, the words come out in a hurried, capriciously connected deluge. Newton seems incapable of standing from his chair, but he's like a restless child and can hardly stay seated. Assured in his cleverness and with a flair for poetry, he's inclined to overstatement and blatant BS, using to excess and squandering terms like "existentialism," trying to make an impression, sweet-talk or alarm his audience into worshipping him, then slipping into bizarre, droll asides on race, politics, philosophy, Shakespeare, mythology and music.Researchers have found that TV programs that feature black characters can influence both how young black viewers see themselves and how others view them. And Huey's clever, time and again rather uncanny, and undoubtedly distressed. He's somewhere between the most profoundly sharp underachiever you've ever met and that guy talking to himself at the bus stop. Smith gives an extremely impressive, tremendously physical performance entailing the severest, most persistent cigarette smoking I've ever seen.Regardless, Spike Lee uses whatever tools he can to make this more than a plain transcript of a stage play, including blue screen effects and documentary footage. The prison-like set further underscores the acute remoteness of Huey Newton, who spent years in solitary confinement. In contrast, Lee's tendency for extreme close-ups that cut off parts of his subject's face and body merely functions to dissociates us from this enigmatic character. In the end, I'm not sure I know where the stage ends and the real Newton begins. But maybe that's the point.

This movie was brilliant. It showed us the power and frailty of this influential man. Roger Guenveur Smith's performance was breathtaking and deep. I, being a young black man, need to know my history and past (since they write it out of the history books) so I can continue on with that message. Our race (being one of the most influential and diverse races ever), has constantly had to overcome obstacles and oppression for years. To understand where we come from and see how our elders fought for our rights is powerful. We must continue to fight for our rights to be heard and be free (because we are far from it) and not back down from our oppressors. Men like this, although not perfect by any standards, gave us hope for the future. We must fight by any means necessary for the right to be equal and free everyone from this "Slave Mentality". All power to the people!

Roger Guenveur Smith deserves high praise for his uncanny resemblance to and phenomenal rendition of Huey P. Newton bringing to life a formidable figure in American history. It is mesmerizing to watch the complexity and brilliance of Newton being played out on screen.