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PORTSIDE CULTURE
THE BIG CIGAR REVIEW: BLACK PANTHER HISTORY GETS A HOLLYWOOD MAKEOVER
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Manuel Betancourt
May 16, 2024
AV Club
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_ The improbable story of Huey P. Newton’s escape to Cuba—with
the help of a pair of movie producers—is stretched thin in this
Apple TV+ miniseries _
André Holland in The Big Cigar , Photo: Apple TV+
At the heart of _The Big Cigar_, the Apple TV+
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centered on Huey P. Newton’s escape to Cuba aided by a pair of
Hollywood producers, is a simple, oft-repeated idea: This entire thing
could be a movie! Bert Schneider (played by Alessandro Nivola) means
this literally. The lengths he and his producing partner, Stephen
Blauner (P. J. Byrne), go to help the Black Panther founder flee the
United States are improbable—seen only in the kinds of indie movies
these trailblazers were churning out in the 1960s. And it’s only by
pretending to get one of their projects off the ground that Schneider
is able to help Newton, Hollywood serving as a helpful shield for the
outlandish things these men have to do. And Schneider does believe
what they eventually get away with could, indeed, make for a great
Hollywood flick.
The problem with this show (which premieres May 17
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hitting that note over and over again is that you’re reminded that
those Hollywood heydays are over—and that, these days, such
movie-ready plots end up serving instead as premises for prestige-TV
dramas. There is nothing inherently wrong with these. But there are
times when, over the course of its six episodes, _The Big
Cigar _feels like it could’ve used a trim, a tighter container,
and, perhaps, benefited from being a movie and not a limited series.
The Big Cigar
B-
“The story I’m about to tell you is true,” Newton (André
Holland) tells us in voice-over at the start of the show’s first
episode. “At least, uh, mostly true—at least how I remember it.
But it is coming through the lens of Hollywood, so let’s see how
much of my story they are really willing to show.” It’s but one
example of the way _The Big Cigar _wishes to wink at us at every
turn, reminding us this is not history as it happened so much as
history as it is retold—through the specific vision of a pop culture
object, one whose very biases will be laid bare throughout. Newton is
right to be wary. The Black Panther party has long had to contend with
the ways in which its very existence has had to struggle against the
idea (in politics and in media) that it was a militant, terrorist
organization that posed an unimaginable threat to the United States.
And it was indeed militant, as its tenets were based on emboldening
African Americans to defend themselves from a hostile white
establishment and its attendant law enforcement.
Newton was at the forefront of that struggle. In _The Big Cigar_,
he’s presented as a vexing figure, full of contradictions, who tried
to help the Black community in Oakland (and in the U.S. writ large)
but who found, time and time again, obstacles toward making that
happen. And this is all while images of him with guns and the
intentionally abrasive uniform that made the Panthers so easily
spotted added to the painting of him as a criminal. By 1974, when
charges for the death of a young sex worker are brought against him,
Newton turns to the one unlikely ally he’d made years earlier: the
producer behind _Easy Rider_. Schneider was committed to changing the
world of the movies but also the world more broadly.
As we witness in various flashbacks throughout the series, he’d
carved his way into helping Newton and the Black Panthers, even when
such a relationship made Newton wary. But it’s Schneider who becomes
the Panther founder’s best bet to evade those charges and flee
abroad alongside his girlfriend Gwen Fontaine (Tiffany Boone). What
follows is a wholly improbable story that is (somewhat) true. In
essence, it’s a caper in which Schneider and Blauner need to pretend
to fund a fake movie that serves as cover for transporting one of the
U.S.’s most wanted.
The Big Cigar — Official Trailer | Apple TV+
And were _The Big Cigar _only that caper, it would move with the
propulsive rhythm such a genre offering requires. But the series is
interested in giving a longer history of Newton and the Black Panther
movement. And so as it apes the caper trappings for its 1974 scenes,
those earlier moments at times feel like they belong to a different
series, one less interested in the escape to Cuba than in correcting
misconceptions about Newton and the Panthers. There are intriguing
snippets in all these various timelines, but the shuttling back and
forth deprives _The Big Cigar _from the nimble cadence it requires
to keep up with Holland’s narration, Newton’s story, and the
vibrant ’70s aesthetic directors like Don Cheadle bring to the
series.
As a history lesson, one that time and time again reminds us that
American law enforcement has been a weapon bludgeoned against those
trying to break apart the status quo, _The Big Cigar _feels
particularly timely. And with its throwback sensibility, which borrows
heavily both from ’60s independent films and ’70s Blaxploitation
flicks in equal measure, the limited series sets its own tone and
style for what remains a necessary revisionist take on these most
pivotal of decades.
_THE BIG CIGAR _PREMIERES MAY 17 ON APPLE TV+
* the big cigar
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* apple tv+
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* Huey Newton
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* Cuba
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* Hollywood
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* Black Panther Party
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