Tribes
2020 · 10m · USA
Directed by Nino Aldi
Tones: darkly comic, humorous
Three amateur robbers of different racial backgrounds try to steal from train passengers, only to find their own internalized racial biases prevent each from victimizing anyone from their 'own tribe.'
Picked by Margot
The scouts
Three robbers can't bring themselves to mug their own race — an SNL sketch stretched to ten minutes with a thesis statement bolted to the front. Watchable, but the punchline arrives before the title card.
Aldi's farcical heist with each robber refusing to victimize his 'own tribe' is a Spike Lee-adjacent satirical move on identity that, on the page summary's account, the SOTW review finds genuinely funny rather than scolding. The risk of woke-eye-roll is the precise risk the film knows it must navigate.
Short of the Week selection, 10 minutes, and a heist-comedy structure that turns the genre's mechanics into a vehicle for satire — that's farce architecture doing real work. Page summary suggests the pacing is 'fast-paced' and 'over-the-top,' which is the right register for the premise.