It was excellent.
I went in with low expectations. The trailer was not doing it for me. I've explained why elsewhere. But the trailer showed Kaluuya not having Fred's charisma or Fred's warmth. It showed him channeling his passion through anger. And that wasn't Fred. I went in hoping this wasn't gonna be another Queen & Slim. So again, expectations were real low.
But Kaluuya's Fred turned out to be great. He ended up displaying the warmth that was so central to Fred. He had the voice and cadence down pretty well. He did have some intense ass stares that were not quite Fred-like but lol oh well.

I think for myself, and plenty of others, people like Fred Hampton, Malcolm X, Muhammad Ali... They loom so large in the imagination, that no actor will ever BE that person. I don't care what you say about Denzel as Malcolm, that was Denzel. Same for dude in One Night In Miami. Same for Daniel in this role. And that's okay. He was great. As a side note, which is not a critique, it was weird to see Fred so small, all these people towering over him. Fred was a big dude.

It wasn't perfect though. Some of that was due to the time (and budget) constraints of a movie. Fred's uniting of the Chicago factions, for example. That played out really quickly. They mention the Crowns, Young Lords, Young Patriots, Stones, Disciples & Vice Lords (iirc), but only a couple scenes show this uniting. So, it was rushed. I would have loved to see more of that. The movie was already two hours long though. I take a little bit of issue with the Panther/Police interaction too. I don't think it makes the Panthers look like instigators of the conflict as various points, which decontextualizes it some. And, the popular narrative is that the Panthers are these tough guys... without acknowledging that the people who made the Panthers run were the women. The film largely, but not entirely, buys into that narrative too.

LaKeith was great, but like others have mentioned in regards to Fred's age, William O'Neal was only 17 and despite the opening scene where the Crowns say "he's just a kid" you don't ever really get a sense of just how young he is. Any of these people. Dominique Fishback was great as Deborah, and her scenes with Daniel, those intimate, tender moments were some of the best in the film.

I wish that Fred's politics were more centered in the film. They're not completely absent, but they're not the focus either. Neither is Fred's history or the history of the chapter or Chicago or anything like that, but that's asking a lot of a movie. The Chicago Panthers (or the Oakland Panthers) would be an incredible series if it could be handled with the same amount of care as this one.

Overall, I thought this was a step above One Night In Miami, which I also thought was great, and unless this year delivers so truly amazing films, I can't see it not being in my top 5 ten months from now.