TONIGHT WITH TRAV RATES “THE INSPECTION” WITH…

Film Synopsis: A young, gay Black man (Jeremy Pope), rejected by his mother (Gabrielle Union), and with very few and limited options for his future, decides to join the Marines doing whatever it takes to succeed in a system that would cast him aside.

Trav’s Critique On “THE INSPECTION” ➡️To say that this was based on true events …this movie truly broke my heart …to my core! I know that Gabrielle Union gave in an interview about The Inspection that it was very tedious for her to portray a mother who turns away her own child because of his sexual orientation because in her real and very personal life she has a child who is a transexual with her husband, Dwayne Wade. Union, personally is NOT that kind of mother nor individual and is the complete opposite of the character that she had to portray in this film, The Inspection.

Personally speaking, I know that there are a varied number of parents that force their kids to choose between them and religion, sexual preferences, etc. I feel that if your own flesh and blood has to pose a question on you to choose what you feel you love or have a passion for, or your own family and your own parents throw you out of their home, your own home. That is just inhumane! I’m sorry, but it just is. In this film, Union’s character tells her son that she will always love him but will not and cannot ever love what he chose to be; and that is a homosexual. There’s no inspection to find out one’s sexual preferences.

She felt that he joined the Marines to become a man and to toughen up and become a man; what SHE wanted him to be, but in actuality, he joined the Marines so that he could die being a hero and not a homeless faggot on the street. The writers of The Inspection made Ellis French’s character does not want to die like that. I can respect Ellis French for wanting to make a name for that. He wanted to do something with his life and his mother stopped talking to him ever since he was 1t6 years of age until he went to her and asked her for his birth certificate in order to enlist. She was a nonchalance and harsh parent, but Ellis told her that he would never give up on her neither their relationship and he left the choice up to her to keep in touch with him – or not.

Really, in my eyes, he was more of a man than he actually realized. He suffered and endured mental and physical torture to get where he got where his graduation was concerned. He could not reach his mother during the entire film no matter how many phone calls and letters he sent to her with no response until he finally asked Sgt. Rosales to use his private phone to reach her and when he finally reached her at work, she did not give an answer as to if she would attend his graduation and he ended the conversation with telling his mother that he loved her despite her horrendous treatment of him, and she hung up the phone and did not say a word. In a word, inspection …inspection is what the film is all about – inspecting who you are inside, checking out what works best for you, and how to implement what you have learned.

The unfair treatment that Ellis received from his fellow recruits when they found out about his sexual orientation plus the treatment from his mother – I just could not stand watching the film. When I say that I want to see films like this; it’s NOT in a good way, but I just want to see them because I just feel like I have to – or like I’m obligated or something. It’s rather difficult to explain. But nonetheless – this is a film based on true events and stories like this REALLY do exist today, and it breaks my heart! It really does!