Queen & Slim

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The jump from directing Beyonce's music videos to helming a 2 1/2 hour debut feature film seems to have overwhelmed Melina Matsoukas, making "Queen & Slim" - which has been hyped as "a black "Bonnie & Clyde" - an intriguing, but uneven, film.�

It begins with a most unlikely Tinder date between uptight lawyer Queen (Jodie Turner-Smith) and Costco sales clerk Slim (Daniel Kaluuya). They meet up at an old-fashioned diner, which she hates, but he loves.�Nothing is going right, but things are going to get worse when Slim gives the reluctant Queen a ride home.

Pulled over by a surly white cop for an alleged traffic offense, Slim plays it cool until the officer draws his gun and suddenly the situation escalates, with Queen being shot in the leg. A fight between the two men then occurs, as each of them struggles for the gun; when, inevitably, it goes off, the cop ends up dead.

Slim's instinct is to call 911, but Queen - whose last client has just received the death penalty for a similar incident - insists that they will not receive fair treatment from the authorities, and insists that they should go on the run.

"Queen and Slim" turns into a road movie, with the pair leaving Ohio and heading to Cuba via Miami. Life on the lam is not helped by the hostility between Queen and Slim.�However, their animosity miraculously disappears one night in a small jazz club; suddenly, the couple is in love.�This switch, although expected, is still unconvincing, though at least they can now use their anger against the pursuing cops, and not each other.�

The storyline also leads to a questionable piece of editing in which some explicit lovemaking is mixed with another scene in which a young black kid confronts an armed cop.

The couple's colorful encounter with Queen's Uncle Earl (Bokeem Woodbine), a New Orleans pimp, is one of the most convincing scenes, whereas the woefully underused Chloe Sevigny looks decidedly uncomfortable as one of the few good white people helping the lovers escape.

This is British ex-model Turner-Smith's first major movie role, and her performance lacks confidence at times. But Kaluuya excels in his role as reluctant runaway Slim. With Matsoukas in charge, the soundtrack turns out to be one of the other stars of the film.