During the traffic stop, which is recorded on body and dashcams, Kajani is shot and killed in front of his father, Jefferson, by officer Mike Randall.

One year later, a documentary film crew, led by student filmmaker Jordin King, requests an interview with Jefferson at the same time as the Grand Jury's decision on the guilt or innocence of Officer Randall is due to be televised.

Prisoners and civilians are pressed into serving on the makeshift jury, which leads to a lot of argument and discussion regarding racial relations and tensions.

Officer Randall then admits racial bias on his part and that he pulled Jefferson and Kajani over because they were black in an affluent neighborhood after midnight.

[13] IndieWire's David Ehrlich described the film as "like a cross between Frank Capra and Tommy Wiseau" and stated that it "is so bad that [Parker] deserves to be canceled on artistic grounds alone", giving it a D grade.

[14] Xan Brooks at The Guardian raised the issue surrounding director Nate Parker's previous controversial acquittal of a rape while he was a student at Pennsylvania State University, and found the film to be "clotted, so strident and so thickly cloaked in self-pity that its impassioned story risks becoming worryingly self-serving.

This interpretation isn't helped by Parker's decision to cast himself in the leading role of Linc Jefferson, a noble hero driven to breaking point by a miscarriage of justice.

"[17] Alonso Duralde from The Wrap wrote that "American Skin is a clunky, heavy-handed film that takes a pressing contemporary issue and flattens it under two genres the writer-director seems ill-equipped to handle — the mockumentary and the courtroom drama", adding that "There's certainly an idea for a movie here, but it's one that's undercut at nearly every turn, from the straw-man/mouthpiece arguments Parker's script puts into the mouths of most of the characters (including policemen and convicts alike) to the film's periodic abandonment of the student-footage gimmick".

[19] Owen Gleiberman of Variety said, "It's a good movie: tense, bold, angry, empathetic, provocative, observant, morally engaged...

"[20] Elisabeth Sereda of the Golden Globe Awards hailed American Skin as "a lesson in race relations in a country with a current government that is not famous for knowing or caring much about this topic."