At the dawn of the Obama era, when the test of a man seems finally to lie in the content of his character and not the color of his skin, Getting Along revisits a racial divide so vicious that white police beat an unemployed black construction worker nearly to death and a black mob retaliated by attacking a white truck driver, crushing his skull with bricks. Nearly 20 years have passed since the televised beatings of Rodney King and Reginald Denny. At the time, King implored Los Angeles to lay down its rocks, guns and weapons of mass hysteria and “all just get along.” But did we?
Getting Along addresses racism and redemption in a post-Obama world, as seen through the eyes of two of American bigotry’s most celebrated victims. Drawing upon King’s and Denny’s own family photos, home movies, and more than 25 hours of footage shot by the filmmakers over the past 15 years, Getting Along is a two-hour TV special aimed at detailing the surprising lives of these two men, before and after the riots.
When sober, Rodney gets along just fine. He has a terrific sense of humor and a sweet humility that surprises all who meet him for the first time, but sobriety eludes him. His life has evolved into a daily struggle for redemption. Currently a patient in Dr. Drew Pinsky’s VH-1 series “Celebrity Rehab” and “Sober House”, King recognizes the folly into which drugs and alcohol plunge him, but he isn’t alone in his struggle Getting Along. Reginald Denny, that other famous poster boy of the ’92 riots, has also been searching for redemption. Now a motor boat repairman in the desert resort town of Lake Havasu City, he battles a different set of demons – less identifiable than booze, but just as insidious. Getting Along free of the chronic depression that transformed his simple life into a living nightmare remains a struggle. Mostly he succeeds, but there are still dark days.
In the end, it turns out the answer to King’s question comes from the 44th President of the Unites States. Can we all just get along? It isn’t always easy. Racism may be in remission, but it still lingers. Echoing Barack Obama, however, King and Denny both agree: Yes, we can.