‘The Dutchman’ review: André Holland stars in a risky stage-to-screen translation

Based on the 1964 play Dutchman by Amiri Baraka, Andre Gaines’ modern telling of The Dutchman takes some wild adaptational swings. Whether they pay off is another matter — truth be told, they often don’t — but the sheer creative gall behind the movie is worthy of note, making it a fascinating artifact of stage-to-screen translation. The play, about a seductive white woman approaching and berating a Black man on the New York subway, was first penned in the wake of Malcolm X’s killing as a means to explore the fraught dynamic between white and Black America at the time, as well Black men’s evolving relationship to themselves.

One needn’t be familiar with Baraka’s work before watching the film, though it certainly helps, giv...