Fresh off of her latest film, What Men Want, Taraji P. Henson keeps adding more projects to her slate.
The Academy Award-nominated actress is slated to star alongside Ed Helms in the Netflix film Coffee & Kareem. Described as “an action comedy,” the film will center around a Detroit cop that teams up with his girlfriend’s 11-year-old son to clear his name and take down the city’s most ruthless criminal. Ed Helms will portray the detective and Henson will portray his girlfriend. The son has not been cast yet.
The script was written by Shane McCarthy and appeared on the 2014 Black List. Michael Dowse, who directed the Fox comedy Dowser, will direct the film.
On the surface, the plot of Coffee and Kareem sounds like another “white savior” narrative. This announcement comes after criticism surrounding The Best Of Enemies, another Henson-led film that portrays the friendship between civil rights activist Ann Atwater and Ku Klux Klan leader C.P. Ellis.
A white savior film is a type of film that portrays a white character as a figure that is vital to rescuing minority characters from their plight. Often times, white savior films are based upon true stories, but still somehow either twist the real-life narrative or completely add faux plot lines to paint said white characters as a heroes. A lot of times the white savior character in a film is battling biases and prejudices of their own, and being a “savior” to the black character(s) seems to be a way to boost the character’s favor in the eyes of the audience. Examples of white savior films include To Kill A Mockingbird, Radio, The Help, Hidden Figures, and most recently, Green Book.
What do you think? Are you feeling in the plot of this move or do you think we’ll be surprised? Comment below with your reactions.
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Photo by Roy Rochlin/Getty Images for Paramount Pictures, Photo by George Pimentel/Getty Images
