Ponderous and Self-Congratulatory

Rating: 5/10 (29 June 2010)

Denzel Washington plays boxer "Hurricane" Carter in this biopic about Carter's struggles with racist America even as he was ascending boxing's pedestal.
Veteran Norman Jewison, no stranger to films about social outrage, and particularly to films about racism ("In the Heat of the Night"), perhaps is a little too close to his subject matter, as the whole film is too preachy, earnest and self-congratulatory. Washington gives a performance full of obvious conviction, but the film's length and sheer unwieldiness eventually do him in.
Grade: C