Washington's the King of the Ring in "The Hurricane"

by Jon Chattman

2-3-2000

Denzel Washington, who won a Golden Globe for Best Actor last week, reigns and pours out his soul with an Oscar-worthy performance as wrongly imprisoned boxer Rubin "Hurricane" Carter in Director Norman Jewison's film, "The Hurricane." His jaw-droppingly good performance in one of last year's best films, alone is worth the price of admission. Rubin Carter had battled many times in his life in and outside of the ring. He battled to survive on the mean streets of his New Jersey neighborhood with racist detective Vincent Della Pesca (Dan Hedaya) out to get him because he was African American. After years in a juvenile center, and a stint with the army, Carter found himself climbing up the ranks in the boxing world.

That changed however, when he and another man, John Artis, were framed for murdering three people inside a New Jersey bar in 1966. They were found guilty by an all white jury. They were sentenced to three life terms just for being of a different color skin. While in prison. Carter lived inside his head by cutting himself out of the prison world that surrounded him. He began to write memoirs about how justice was not blind to the color of his skin. Those memoirs were later published, and inspired a song of protest. "The Hurricane," by Bob Dylan not to mention other protests by such figures as Muhammad Ali.

Despite all of the notoriety Carter received by the protesters, the courts rejected his appeals for a new trial, and he remained in a cell. Years later, on the other side of the prison fence, a teenager, Lesra Martin (Vicellous Reon Shannon), looks for direction in his life. He lives in Canada with guardians, who took him out of the urban neighborhood he lived in with his parents, in the hopes that they could enhance his education potential. One day Lesra stumbles upon Carter's memoir. "The Sixteenth Round," at a book sale, reads it, identifies with it, and begins writing to the author. His letters give Carter a new meaning in life, and give him hope. The two spark a friendship as Lesra begins to visit him in prison. Inspired by Carter, the teenager recruits his guardians Terry Swinton (John Hannah), Lisa Peters (Deborah Kara Unger), and Sam Chaiton (Liev Schreiber), to try to get him out of prison. Carter is at first reluctant to put his fate in the hands of the white guardians, but is eventually won over by their heart and dedication.

"The Hurricane" would not have been the same heavyweight without Denzel Washington's tour- de-force performance. He hits moviegoers like the storm in which the boxer is nicknamed after. The actor matches his best performance, "Malcolm X," by embodying the character he is portraying. At no time does it seem as if Washington is acting. He becomes the character---he is "the Hurricane." Washington's at his best particularly in the first scenes of him entering prison. He shows Carter's determination not to be treated like a guilty man, when he refuses to dress in prison garb because of his innocence. He'd prefer to be sent to solitary confinement rather than admit his guilt. In a skillful sequence of scenes in solitude, Washington is most riveting when he is literally confronted by his conscience, one being a child-like Carter scared of the black hole he's been placed in, and the other, an angry Carter who wants to take revenge for being condemned merely for the color of his skin.

Along with Washington, the supporting cast hold their own. Debbi Morgan, as Carter's girlfriend Mae Thelma shines; David Paymer and Harris Yulin make the most of their limited roles as the lawyers who defend Carter, Myron Beldock and Leon Friedman, and the trio of Unger, Schreiber, and Hannah are equally effective despite their characters being a bit distracting. Rod Steiger, who reteams with his "In the Heat of the Night" director Jewison, steals the scene in the small role of Judge Sarokin, the man who finally sets Carter free. The best of the supporting cast is Shannon, who makes Lesra real as opposed to reel. Like Washington, he does not seem to be acting. He shows Lesra as a teen who needed guidance, and gets it by reading a book. Shannon excels in his first encounter face-to-face in prison with the man behind the words.

On a negative note, Dan Hedaya has the lackluster role of Detective Della Pesca, whose lone purpose in the film is to condemn Carter. He plays the stereotypical racist cop who pulls the strings of eyewitnesses to land Carter in jail nicely, but his character is too one-dimensional--- one of the only flaws of screenplay by Armyan Bernstein and Dan Gordon, based on the two books about the boxer, 1991's Lazarus and the Hurricane, by Chaiton and Swinton, and the boxer's own 1974 memoir. The script also takes a hit in that Bernstein and Gordon work so hard to establish Carter's character, that it takes away from most of the supporting players. Director Jewison, the legendary filmmaker behind "In the Heat of the Night" and "Moonstruck," directs each scene like a pro. Bouncing the camera around each scene as if it were a boxer, he tells the story of the Hurricane while jabbing in with scenes of Lesra being inspired outside prison walls. The cinematography by Roger Deakins, whose previous credits include "Fargo," is a knock out. His camera work puts the moviegoers ringside for each boxing scene. On a minor note, Christopher Young's music is overshadowed by the constant replaying of Bob Dylan's brilliant song.

"The Hurricane" has recently come under fire for crossing the line between fact and fiction, but anyway one looks at it, it ranks as a superb film and one of 1999aous best. It proves love conquers all, and Washington proves that after a string of so-so films, he is a force to be reckoned with.

Grade: A