At a powderkeg moment in American policing, "The Force" goes deep inside the embattled Oakland Police Department as it struggles to reform itself amid growing local controversy. Winner of the Documentary Directing Award at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival, filmmaker Peter Nicks (The Waiting Room) embedded with the department over the course of two years to follow its serial efforts to recast itself.

The film focuses on the new chief brought in to effect reform at the very moment the Black Lives Matter movement emerges to demand police accountability and racial justice both in Oakland and across the nation.