I’m Charlie Walker review – stereotype-busting sort-of true story of a trucker and an oil spill

An entrepreneur’s struggles with obstructive business and endemic racism are refreshingly free of preconceptions

This film opens with the words “based on a true story” splashed across the screen. About 70-odd minutes later, just before the closing credits roll, we’re also told that “all characters and events in this film, even those based on real individuals, are completely fictional”. Somewhere between those two contradictory, lawyer-friendly statements, a print-the-legend account unfolds of a semi-heroic individual who was indeed named Charlie Walker.

A Black man born in the south who relocated to the Bay area of northern California to raise a family, this film’s version of Charlie Walker (Mike Colter) is first encountered in 1971 trying to build up a trucking business in San Francisco. Charlie faces endemic racism that prevents him getting ahead in the haulage business to provide for his family, which includes his wife (and the film’s narrator) Ann (Safiya Fredericks) and three young girls.