Long before he was taking to the skies as the Marvel Cinematic Universe's second Captain America, Anthony Mackie appeared in an overlooked Spike Lee TV movie. Lee, of course, is known for movies like "Do the Right Thing," "Malcolm X," and "BlacKkKlansman," and a filmography that has typically been concerned with themes of race and racism in America. A prolific filmmaker, many of Lee's movies have earned the director international acclaim and have seen him work with stars such as Samuel L. Jackson,
Wesley Snipes, and Denzel Washington. Anthony Mackie's work with Lee took place before the actor was the blockbuster star he is today, though.
Mackie is best known for playing Sam Wilson in the MCU. Originally introduced as the Falcon in "Captain America: The Winter Soldier," and generally regarded as one of the MCU's strongest entries, Sam went on to become Captain America after Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) gave up the mantle in 2019's "Avengers: Endgame." Outside of the MCU, Mackie is known for his roles in the 2008 Iraq war drama, "The Hurt Locker," and the 2011 thriller, "The Adjustment Bureau." He has also appeared in two major Netflix sci-fi series, "Altered Carbon" and "Black Mirror," and is one of the co-leads on Peacock's "Twisted Metal."
In 2004, when Mackie was still a little-known actor, he joined Lee on a surprisingly small-scale project for the director. "Sucker Free City" was a TV movie intended to be the pilot episode for a series that never happened.
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Spike Lee Cast Anthony Mackie In A Crime Thriller
Made for Showtime, "Sucker Free City" starred Mackie as gang member K-Luv, alongside Ben Crowley as fraudster and drug dealer Nick Wade, and Ken Leung as Chinese mafia member Lincoln Ma. The film followed the tensions between different gangs in the San Francisco neighborhood of Hunter's Point. When gentrification forces Nick's family to relocate to the neighborhood controlled by the V-Dubs gang, Nick is initially harassed by the gang. Things take a turn when K-Luv approaches him for help in bootlegging CDs and negotiating a truce with Lincoln.
Like many of Spike Lee's movies, "Sucker Free City" focused on race and class tensions, examining the struggles of a working-class American neighborhood. These themes and the film's approach have led to comparisons to HBO's "The Wire," a prestige series in the footsteps of which Lee's project should have followed. Unfortunately, though, Showtime turned the project down and it never became anything more than a largely overlooked one-off TV movie. The movie screened at the Toronto International Film Festival before being shown on Showtime.
Despite never being picked up for series, the movie has received generally positive reviews. It currently sits at a 69% audience score on review aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes, though it has not received enough reviews from critics to form a definitive critic score. It seems likely "Sucker Free City" will remain another hidden gem of Spike Lee's career.
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Read the original article on SlashFilm.
