Fruitvale Station begins with chilling cell phone video of Oscar Grant being shot by a BART police officer in the early hours of New Year’s Day 2009, a stark documentary preface to Ryan Coogler’s fictionalized account of the last twenty-four hours of Grant’s life. As Grant, Michael B. Jordan is both tough and tender, struggling but sincere in his efforts to move beyond past transgressions to become a better father, partner, and son. Coogler, a Bay Area native, “examines his subject with a steady, objective eye and tells his story in the key of wise heartbreak rather than blind rage” (A. O. Scott).