RJ Cyler, Sebastian Chacon and Donald Elise Watkins in "Emergency" by Carey Williams, an official selection of the U.S. Dramatic Competition at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival.
Courtesy of Sundance Institute. CHICAGO - Editor's note: This review originally ran as part of our coverage of the 2022 Sundance Film Festival on Jan.
21, 2022. It has been expanded and republished in light of the film's premiere on Prime Video. "Emergency" has all the ingredients of a classic "one wild night" story, and it is that — hard to imagine a movie in which someone shoots pepper-spray into their own face after jabbing a stranger repeatedly in the butt with a big stick could be anything else.
What makes "Emergency" unusual is that its familiar formula takes place in the reality that Black people in America experience every day.