“Rob Peace” has been made in the spirit of Black New Wave films of the 1980s and ’90, often modestly budgeted movies about poor or working-class people facing real problems. It would not have existed without actor Chiwetel Ejiofor. He directed the film and adapted the script from a nonfiction book by Jeff Hobbs, who knew the title character. He also plays Skeet, a big-hearted, raucous man who loves his son but is limited, even broken, in a lot of ways. 

Did Skeet commit two murders? He says he didn’t, and a lot of people in the neighborhood are convinced he didn’t, and he had no criminal record of any kind prior to being arrested for the killings. Rob’s beloved mother Jackie Peace (Mary J. Blige, who’s as good an actress as she is a musical performer) won’t go so far as to say that she has doubts, only that she kept a few of the more unsavory details of Skeet’s life from their son so that he could enjoy the same privilege so many other sons have, of looking up to their fathers. The story of Rob and his imprisoned father is the backbone of the movie.

But it’s not the only element that Ejiofor focuses on. There’s a lot, and I mean a lot, going on in this adaptation, in good and bad ways. It’s impressive to consider the screenplay and direction from the standpoint of craft. It’s simultaneously an example of compression (trying to get in and out of a scene as quickly as possible, for the sake of economy and momentum) but also expansiveness (trying to make every moment do more than one thing: establish or developing characters, plant bits of foreshadowing, make comments on life beyond this one true story).  

Among all the other things that it is, “Rob Peace” is a portrait of a type of extraordinary individual whose prodigious gifts are yoked into service by those who don’t have such blessings. Rob’s father is the number one example. Watch how he goes from being tearfully grateful for his son’s help to seeming like he feels entitled to it, and making the lad feel guilty for not spending every waking moment living for his pop. But Rob is also a beacon of what’s possible for neighbors, teachers, and high school and university classmates (he has the rare ability to draw people from a lot of different demographics together to party). There’s a even a subplot about Rob and a couple of his friends realizing there’s money to be made in buying and “flipping” houses, to make a little money off the gentrification that started transforming a urban neighborhoods after the turn of the millennium, including East Orange’s and Newark’s. Rob’s got the vision, but he also has the skills. It soon becomes apparent that the skills helped give him the vision. You see this idea expressed even in little moments, like when Jackie and Rob have a budgeting talk and she reflexively has him do the math.