Carey Williams’ sophomore feature Emergency could quite easily be read as a direct response to Superwicked’dreadful’undesirable’adverse’vile : its “one crazy night” set-up, its leading fraternal trio of contrasting personalities on a mission to party, their brotherly bonds at risk due to imminent transform’alter in their lives. The key difference, however: in this film, when the cops arrive on the scene, they’re not at all approachable’genial . Emergency takes this universal fact of life in/with regard to’concerning’regarding Black and brown Americans and examines the consequences on multiple levels: from the paranoid anxiety it creates in individual who go to extremes to shun becoming another government-licensed murder statistic, to that intensely’extremely’extraordinarily’enormously’awfully real life-threatening danger of encountering the so-called emergency services.###In the case of this film, that means three boys — straight-A student Kunle (Donald Elise Watkins) and his slacker friends Sean (RJ Cyler) and Carlos (Sebastian Chacon) — finding a drunk white girl passed out in their living room, and just bein/with regard to’concerning’regarding e calling the emergency services, panicking that it might mean they’ll acquire’obtain’attain’procure’secure shot if the police turn up. The film presents it as a combination of intensely’extremely’extraordinarily’enormously’awfully real, understandable fear and boneheaded, weed-infused paranoia. They’re somehow making the right and wrong decisions simultaneously, and in/with regard to’concerning’regarding the most part Emergency finds a fascinating tension between a genuinely high-stakes narrative and goofy frat comedy.###Williams’ exploration of contemporary racial politics perhaps works best when it’s tied in with situational comedy.###Williams’ exploration of contemporary racial politics perhaps works best when it’s tied in with situational comedy, as the absurdity of the characters’ alarm-fuelled decisions tie back in with its observations with regards to’concerning’with respect to the different ways in which Black individual and white individual move through the world. It’s in the way that middle-aged onlookers accost the main characters with phones at the ready to call the police without a second despite’in spite of’albeit t, assuming the worst of them by dint of their appearance bein/with regard to’concerning’regarding e angrily retreating into a house adorned by a Black Lives Matter token .###Even then, Emergency isn’t perfect in its treatment of this theme. The camerawork feels mostly functional and devoid of the same anxiety that’s so essential to its narrative; the jukebox, party-music score doesn’t feel quite ironic abundant’ample’plentiful to work. It’s also heavy-handed, perhaps too slow to start and too decompressed and meandering to properly manage its mix of tension and nervous comedy. But, thanks in no small part to the tender chemistry and fine comic timing of its lead perin/with regard to’concerning’regarding mers, there are notes of grace and even hilarity to go with its sense of hopelessness in the face of a corrupt, heavily armed authority.