God Loves the Fighter
Director: Damian Marcano
Starring: Darren Cheewah, Zion Henry, Simon Junior John
104 mins

God Loves the Fighter is a grim and gritty look at the lives of a handful of desperate people who live on the wrong side of the tracks in Port of Spain, Trinidad & Tobago; a city dubbed ‘the murder capital of the Caribbean’.

They try and eke out a living on the violent streets that provide the backdrop to a never-ending cycle of robberies, drug dealing, gun-running, violence and prostitution.

The film focuses on Charlie (Muhammad Muwakil), a young man pointlessly trying to make an honest living on the crime-ridden streets, his friend Stone (Abdi Waithe) who works for drug-runner Putao (Darren Cheewah) and a prostitute Dinah (Jamie Lee Phillips), whom Charlie encounters one fateful night.

They are characters in search of something better, yet that something is elusive. Director Damian Marcano, who also co-wrote the screenplay, has no qualms in detailing the hopelessness of their situation with unflinching and often painful honesty.

Marcano’s full-on approach is intensified by some rapid-fire editing while as cinematographer, he is also responsible for the film’s powerful visuals.

The pace does let up long enough for some genuine emotion to seep in – a woman recounting how she got into prostitution is particularly moving.

Overall, Marcano draws fully committed performances from the cast – notably Muwakil’s troubled Charlie and Cheewah’s colourful (and often scantily dressed) Putao; while Penelope Spencer as a single mother trying to care for her wayward young son expertly epitomises the abject despair she lives in.

The grimness of the proceedings is peppered with humour throughout, with the story augmented by the voice-over narration by a vagrant (Lou Lyons) in a poetic and reggae-infused rap spoken in a Trinidadian patois.

His final words force us to question whether God actually sees the fighter, let alone love him.