Good, but no classic

Rating: Null/10 (22 January 2000)

In some ways, the story of Rubin "Hurricane" Carter would seem tailor-made for motion pictures. The story of Carter, a champion middleweight boxer who was sentenced to life in prison on a bogus murder rap and who was set free after 19 years through the efforts of his lawyers and a group of courageous Canadian do-gooders, is a tale of triumph over a corrupt system, and the power of hope. Still, it requires the hero to be a relatively passive figure in the deciding of his fate, trapped as he is behind bars. "The Hurricane", Norman Jewison's dramatization of Carter's story, encounters both this story's virtues and its flaws, and ends up with a story that's quite a mixed dramatic bag.
Denzel Washington plays Carter with his customary intensity and control, and undergoes an impressive transformation from hard-souled fighting machine to soft-spoken, eloquent defender of justice. It's really an impressive performance, and Washington benefits from being at the center of many of the film's best-written scenes, including a terrific sequence where Carter hallucinates conversations with himself while trapped in solitary, and a great moment where he gets an unexpected present from his Canadian benefactors.
These Canadians cause other problems, however. Though there was a real group like this involved in the freeing of the Hurricane, the film puts almost the whole operation into their hands, thus making Carter feel like he is passively handing his fate over to them. Also, these three white Canadians sometimes play like satires of do-gooding white liberals. They have taken in an underprivileged black youth who they see potential in (and who I guess they assume would not be able to realize that potential without their help), and after he brings Carter's case to their attention, they shoulder the burden of securing his freedom. It's another film, like the inferior "Ghosts of Mississippi" and the superior "Amistad", in which the black man is only able to achieve his deliverance through the action of white hands.
The American system is a corrupt one, yes, and has perhaps more often worked against blacks than for them. However, the necessities of dramatic condensation has caused "The Hurricane" to channel its criticisms of the system into one man, the fictional cop Della Pesca, played as a one-dimensional bigoted thug by Dan Hedaya. Those unfamiliar with the facts of this story will come away believing that the case of "Hurricane" Carter was not a story of a miscarriage of justice, but of what one white man's hatred did to an innocent black man's life.
Still, even with these criticisms, there is much to admire in this film. The acting is fairly consistent and strong throughout the film (though Washington pretty much acts everyone else off the screen), and Jewison's direction is classy and well-modulated. The film's soundtrack is also nicely handled, with Christopher Young's moodily effective score intercut with classic tunes, including Bob Dylan's exhilarating ode to Carter. Besides, it IS a pretty fascinating story, and thanks to Washington and Jewison, enough of that comes across to make "The Hurricane" an interesting and uplifting experience. You do leave the film with the satisfaction that justice has at long last been done. Hopefully, you'll also leave with a desire to go out and get the real facts of the story.