"The Hurricane"(Originally published Jan. 14, 2000)
Just as New Jersey-born boxer Rubin "Hurricane" Carter was a crowd pleaser in the ring, Norman Jewison's 2000 film based on the man's life, "The Hurricane," is a crowd pleaser on high-definition HD DVD.
The film is big and emotional, underscored with crushing disappointments and wounding indifference, hope won and hope lost, evil reigning while righteous indignation burns.
It's one of those rare movies that works in spite of its overt contrivances and manipulations, a film whose soul seethes with outrage and defiance, and two of Jewison's favorite topics--social and racial injustice.
It's a flaw that Jewison ("In the Heat of the Night," "A Soldier’s Story") finds no middle ground here, no room for characters who aren't either purely evil or purely good (the liberties the director took in fleshing out Carter's life are many), and it's a shame he doesn't trust his story enough to steer clear of melodrama, but the good news is how terrific "The Hurricane" is regardless of its shortcomings.
The reason it's so good is because of Denzel Washington's Academy Award-nominated performance as Carter, a man who spent nearly 20 years in prison for a triple murder he didn't commit only to be freed after the enormous efforts of three Canadians (played here by Liev Schreiber, John Hannah and Deborah Kara Unger). Jewison never explores the communal relationship between these three, but that oversight doesn't harm the film.
Our focus--and Jewison's--is on Washington, one of our best actors, who has rarely been this good. Throughout, he wears Carter's demons like a mask, turning the man's deep inner turmoil and even deeper sense of pride into a showpiece for restraint that builds to a rousing climax.
Grade: A-
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