Monster cast buoys Netflix crime drama that doesn't quite meet moment Monster. Photo by Anna Kooris/Netflix The reckoning over how Black people, and especially Black men, are too often regarded as threats by police and the public at large has been a long time coming. While there are examples of films confronting the issue going back decades, recent years have seen a notable uptick of filmmakers trying to illuminate something that has remained in the dark for much too long. The latest film to do so is Monster, which centers on Steve Harmon (Kelvin Harrison, Jr.), a clean-cut kid with a passion for filmmaking who happens to live in a not-so-good neighborhood in New York City. As the film begins, Steve is in jail for what we soon learn is being an accomplice to the murder of a convenience store clerk, a crime committed by neighborhood acquaintances Richard “Bobo” Evans (John David Washington) and William King (Rakim Mayers, aka ASAP Rocky) while trying to rob the store.