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Director
Norman Jewison
Script Armyan Bernstein, Dan Gordon
Based on the book by Rubin 'Hurricane' Carter
Stars Denzel Washington, Vicellous Reon Shannon, Deborah Kara
Unger, Liev Schreiber, John Hannah
Certificate 15
Running time 145 mins
Made US, 1999
THIS is not a boxing movie. It is a prison movie. Rubin Carter came
from a poor black family. "The kindest thing I can say about my childhood
is that I survived it."
He spent the majority of his teenage years in reform school. After
that it was prison. "I didn't speak English. I spoke hate." And then
he changed. He started reading black writers. "I made up my mind to
turn my body into a weapon." He became a pugilist - "Hurricane" Carter
- and was a contender for the world middleweight title.
One evening, in the summer of '66, two men entered a bar in Paterson,
New Jersey, and opened fire with shot guns. Three white people died.
Carter and a young fan, called John Artis, were questioned by cops
at a gas station on their way home from a club. "We're looking for
two negroes in a white car," they said. "Any two will do?" Carter
quipped.
They were arrested, charged and convicted. Each received three life
sentences. Later, it conspired that a racist detective (Dan Hedaya)
had allegedly doctored the evidence.
This is a film about injustice. It does not pretend to be anything
else. It is also the story of a friendship between an African American
teenager (Vicellous Reon Shannon), living in a house in Toronto with
white middle class property developers who decide to concentrate their
energies on reopening the Carter case.
Norman Jewison made such memorable movies as In The Heat Of The Night,
The Cincinnati Kid and the original Thomas Crown Affair. None match
the intensity, or power of this one, dominated, as it is, by a compelling,
passionate, thoughtful and unforgiving performance from Denzel Washington.
There has been controversy concerning the biased nature of the film,
which apparently overlooks crucial facts and fictionalises others.
Perhaps, for that reason, Washington was denied the Oscar he so richly
deserved.
For all its niggly faults - the Canadians, who include a baffled John
Hannah, are too lightly sketched - and worrying omissions, The Hurricane
is superbly made, intelligently written (Armyan Bernstein, Dan Gordon)
and beautifully photographed (Roger Deakins).
The Wolf
Read
the feature interview with Denzel Washington
Katherine M. Reynolds really liked The Hurricane
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