Freida Pinto's mini series Guerrilla will be an expose of racist policing in 1970s Britain

Showtime's miniseries Guerrilla is Oscar-winning screenwriter John Ridley's (12 Years a Slave) brainchild.[caption id="attachment_3427372" align="alignleft" width="380"] Freida Pinto in the miniseries. Image via Facebook.[/caption]The miniseries takes a look at the 1970s protests for the black civil rights moments in the Britain.Freida Pinto and Babou Ceesay star as two activists in London in 1970s who are planning to free a political prisoner, with Idris Elba taking on a supporting role. Their exploits are no doubt dangerous and thrilling, so much so that Pinto channels Patricia Arquette in True Romance with an anachronistic homage in the trailer: "We're so fucking cool," she tells Ceesay.The two eventually set their sights on on the Black Power Desk, an actual unit whose goal was to stamp out black activism.The 6 episode miniseries premiered on 16 April and it looks like critics gave the show a thumbs up:Roger Ebert says that "Guerrilla is a series that fluctuates significantly with its energy, and even ends on a considerably less exciting note despite all that it is built from. At its best the series can be focused where every scene feels like it matters and is pushing the story at a great speed just through dialogue; in a few too many low-points, Guerrilla displays a narrative gluttony using characters who are ultimately secondary to the revolution."Deadline's review headline noted how Freida Pinto 'shines' in the series, and but called the miniseries 'shrewd but slow paced.'Variety was all praises for Pinto's performance, stating that "Pinto is exceptional in the role. The actress carries a certain gravitas into her role as Jas Mitra, and as a result she’s both hard to read but strangely familiar by the time the real fireworks start. Pinto proves to have enough heft as an actress that she can balance how zealously she is watched, and how symbolically she is interpreted, into a chin-upraised defiance that channels both Angela Davis and Patty Hearst — a chic icon that is either leading or childishly swept up in something vast and seething."The Guardian noted, "It was largely Pinto’s show, a fact already raising hackles among a current cadre of activists who fear the role of black women in Britain’s Black Panther movement is being downplayed. Pinto took lead credit and drove all the significant events; plotting and masterminding the springing from Wormwood Scrubs of a charismatic black leader – templating a similar operation by Germany’s Baader-Meinhof group."Watch the trailer for Guerrilla here: