In a rare moment of levity in Steve McQueen's third 'Small Axe' film, John Boyega's Leroy Logam announces his intention to join the force.
"Like the Jedi or something?" his cousin Tyrone Huntley's Lee says, in a cheeky, knowing reference to Boyega's recent appearance in the last 'Star Wars' trilogy.
The force, of course, that Leroy is referring to is London's Metropolitan Police.
And the decision is unpopular with his father, Steve Toussaint's Ken and most of the Carribbean community.
After the lighter tone of last week's 'Small Axe: Lovers Rock,' McQueen and co-writer Courttia Newland returned to the darker territory of the first film in the anthology 'Small Axe: Mangrove'.
However this time the focus wasn't solely on the victims of institutional police racism.
Instead the spotlight was mostly on the experience of racism from within the force.
The real life Logan is a founding member and former chair of the Black Police Association who was awarded an MBE in the year 2000 for his work to advance policing.
But as McQueen's film shows, the struggle to change the police within was hard fought and painful.
At the start of the drama, we see Nathan Vidal's Leroy as a young boy being approached by police, as he waits outside the school gates to be picked up.
The officers tell him there have a spate of burglaries in the area and they insist on frisking him in his school uniform.
He obliges, only for his father to arrive on the scene and berate the officers for being so ridiculous.
Years later in Margaret Thatcher's Britain, Boyega's Leroy is cajoled into leaving his job as a forensic scientist and enlisting in the police.
However his decision comes after an incident where Ken is assaulted by Met officers after he disputes their claim that the lorry he parked to buy fish and chips for lunch is blocking the road.
Ken is determined to have his day in court and see the officers involved face cross examination.
And he is appalled when he discovers Leroy has decided to enlist, believing that he can change the police from within.
Ken storms over to the doorstep of Lee's aunt, Nadine Marshall's Jesse John to berate her for. encouraging his son to join and he stops speaking to Leroy.
Leroy's wife, Antonia Thomas' Grietl stoically accepts the consequences of his decision, telling hom that it will be difficult to go round to her in-laws' home while Ken is not on speaking terms with him.
At first, Leroy's experience of life in the police is positive, as he undergoes training at the academy in Hendon.
He aces his exams, finishing at the top of the recruits.
But his experience of life on the beat couldn't be more different.
Thrust into a community policing role under the charge of Neil Maskell's Inspector White, he becomes increasingly disgusted by the brazen racism of his fellow officers - particularly Calum Callaghan's sneering PC Beck.
'Dirty n****rs' is daubed on his locker, as Beck spouts mock outrage that someone would write such a racist slur.
Beck and another officer trade racist anecdotes loudly in the staff canteen within earshot of Leroy and Assad Zaman's PC Asif Kamali.
Responding to a report of suspicious behaviour at a factory, no-one from the station except Asif provides backup in a situation where his life is in danger.
McQueen and Newland focus on a small part of Logan's career but the sense of racial injustice is every bit as potent as it was in the story of the Mangrove Nine.
As with the two previous films in the anthology, McQueen is not content to let his cast just do the talking.
Once again, Shabier Kirchner's camera has a key role - capturing gorgeous images like Leroy and Grietl silhouetted against s window bathed in moonlight and bringing us right into the heart of the action.
Occasionally, Kirchner's camera swoops and sways around Leroy in choreographed long takes including during the sequence where pursues a suspect alone in a warehouse and factory.
However McQueen and Kirchner also give us fleeting glimpses of details like the portrait of the Queen in the police training centre, an uncertain parade of recruits in Hendon or an angry sprint on a running track shot from a distance in which Leroy roars in frustration.
Boyega turns in his finest performance to date as an actor, summoning up every ounce of earnestness that he possibly can.
Toussaint captures the bitter disappointment of a Jamican man whose faith in the justice system is undermined and whose son's determination to fix it simply confuses him.
Antonia Thomas, Nadine Marshall, Tyrone Huntley, Seroca Davis as Hyacinth and Joy Richardson as Leroy's mum provide warmth.
Callaghan and Maskell do exactly what is required of them which is to rile audiences.
Zaman and Mark Stanley provide rare glimpses of light as decent police officers in a drama that is withering in its depiction of institutional racism within the Met.
McQueen's film feels like an English take on the police corruption of Sidney Lumet's hard hitting 1973 New York cop drama 'Serpico'.
But it also provides a rare glimpse of what institutional racism looks like from inside the police and the difficulties faced by those who dare to change it.
Logan's story is a profile in courage, with him running a gauntlet of hate from fellow cops, disrespect from young people in the black community and anger within his own family.
The story is powerfully told and it will resonate across the world, particularly in the year of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Black Lives Matter.
Many of the issues Logan has wrestled with have not disappeared in the UK or US or elsewhere.
The question is: what are we prepared to do to address them?
('Small Axe: Red, White and Blue' was broadcast on BBC1 on November 29, 2020 and wax made available for streaming on Amazon Prime on December 4, 2020)
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