“Look out for your daddy now,” someone from Newark tells Rob (Jay Will) as he and his father Skeet (Chiwetel Ejiofor) start on their way down the street in “Rob Peace,” not long after the latter has been released from prison, awaiting an appeal by prosecutors that could send him back. Skeet hasn’t always operated above the law, but as much as he may appear in court to be a likely suspect in a first degree murder trial, he doesn’t to the people in his community, an irony when his son has always had a bit of the reverse effect, surprising teachers who look at where he came from and wonder where his gifts for science came from and Skeet can even be impressed by his mathematical skills, being able to deduce Yankees statistics as a kid without having to look at the back of a Topps card.
Based on a true story, Ejiofor’s second directorial outing after “The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind” is a fascinating follow-up when like his previous film, it involves a young prodigy who puts the world around him on his shoulders after deciding it’s the best use of his gifts, but intriguingly in “Rob Peace,” you don’t know that it is. Skeet’s case is worth further investigation when his conviction was based on largely circumstantial evidence and the testimony of someone who thought they overheard his voice from down a hallway, yet over the 13 years that Rob spends devoting himself to his release, he puts any future he could have on hold, with the occasional rewards such as finding the legal loophole that springs Skeet for even the briefest of moments keeping him going. Skeet may not have taken anyone’s life, but it starts to look like his case may be stealing Sean’s, and “Rob Peace” isn’t out to lay blame on him for this, but to recognize an issue that’s prevented so many other young Black men from thriving.
In spite of an overly polished voiceover full of grand pronouncements and a real-life story that was probably a little messier than the film would have you believe, you see why Ejiofor was so compelled to tell it, illustrating the fine line Peace has to walk between the community he grew up around and his classmates at private schools and using his genius at schemes to subsidize the costs of paying for his father’s defense and ultimately his treatment for cancer, rather than to make progress in his pursuit of a career in immunology. The film has a number of unusually devastating moments that bring the sense of defeat that pervades the community to the surface, with his mother Jackie (Mary J. Blige) offering congratulations simply “being the son of a convict that didn’t go to jail [himself],” not meaning to look past all his other accomplishments as he gets into Yale, yet seeing survival as the ultimate measure of success, and an explanation of local real estate involving a house that Skeet had to sell for just a buck with backtaxes that suggests even with best laid plans, nothing ever becomes affordable. The driving force of breaking a cycle may not be a new one, but Ejiofor puts a new spin on it when he identifies time and energy as much of a squandered asset as any other, and with “Rob Peace,” he certainly can’t be accused of wasting it himself.
“Rob Peace” will screen at the Sundance Film Festival on January 27th at 11 am at the Redstone Cinemas 1 in Park City and January 28th at 8:30 pm at the Megaplex Theatres at the Gateway in Salt Lake City. It will also be available to stream from January 25th through 28th.