Semper Fine: Elegance Bratton Gives Himself a Hero's Journey in The Inspection

The Inspection is, you could say, G.I. Jane for the LGBTQ crowd. 

That Demi Moore vehicle from 25 years ago — now unfortunately known as the fuse that led a certain movie star to slap a certain comedian at a globally televised event earlier this year — was about a military woman facing discrimination and abuse during special operations training. This movie is about a gay man being discriminated against and abused at Marine Corps boot camp. Unlike the fictionalized Jane, Inspection is the true story of writer-director Elegance Bratton. After years of making short films (he also made a documentary feature in 2019 called Pier Kids), Bratton gets his Antwone Fisher on, creating a movie about struggling and surviving in the military and in his everyday life.

Two-time Tony nominee Jeremy Pope plays Bratton stand-in Ellis French. After years of being homeless on the New Jersey streets, kicked to the curb by his disapproving mother (Gabrielle Union), French enlists in the Marine Corps in an attempt to get off the streets and back into his mother’s good graces.

He immediately puts on an act once he gets to the South Carolina boot camp, pretending to be straight around these testosterone-fueled knuckleheads. The facade evaporates when he, shall we say, stands at attention in the showers. Dude is eventually hazed and tormented, especially by a bitter, damn-near-sociopathic training instructor (a seething Bokeem Woodbine).

Bratton practically gives himself a hero’s journey with Inspection. The out-and-proud Pope serves as a willing avatar for Bratton, playing French as a defiant fighter who’s still sensitive enough to show concern for his fellow soldiers in need. With support from a superior (Raúl Castillo) who has our boy wondering if he’s also gay (there’s a dream sequence — or at least I think it’s a dream sequence — involving the pair in a bathroom stall), French not only perseveres through this brutal, body-and-soul-breaking ordeal, but also proves to be the bravest of them all. 

Most of the characters here are textbook assholes. With the exception of a Middle Eastern soldier (Eman Esfandi) who’s also the target of abuse, Bratton depicts the rest of the squad as homophobic, horny himbos, ready to beat off in their bunks whenever they get nudie photos in the mail. But the biggest villain here is French’s mother, whom Union plays like a less psychotic version of Mo’Nique’s monstrous mom character from Precious. Although Bratton presents the mom as a woman who’s pitifully deep in denial about her son’s sexuality, he also gives her briefly sympathetic moments. (Between this role and her voice turn in the recent Disney flick Strange World, Union — who in real life is a stepmom to a trans kid — has apparently become to go-to actress for mothers of gay kids of color.) 

Set smack-dab in the middle of the “don’t ask don’t tell” era (and a few years after 9/11 made everyone thirsty for war), The Inspection is basically Bratton’s melodramatic, feature-length fuck-you to all those who didn’t (and still don’t) think people like him should be fighting for Uncle Sam. Even so, it’s done in a rather self-congratulatory, unremarkable fashion. I’m sure there are many accounts — even more harrowing and disturbing than Bratton’s — of LGBTQ folks going through their own battles of serving in the military. But since Bratton’s story won over the team at uber-hip film company A24, this is the one that’ll be on movie screens for the time being.