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Rating: Null/10 (31 January 2000)

Ironically, Norman Jewison was filming bigotry ("In the Heat of the Night" in 1967 and "A Soldier's Story in 1984) even as a man named Ruben 'Hurricane' Carter was forced to live it. Their paths meet in "The Hurricane", a well-intended story of racism and the price a man paid because of it. It's a pity that Jewison can't carry this film with the same zeal of his two earlier successes. Certainly Denzel Washington brings us 'Hurricane' Carter at his gut-level best, well enough to garner an Oscar nomination. But the tension he brings to his character doesn't seem to rub off on anyone else in this picture and he can't carry this film by himself. The weakest part is, surprisingly, the boy Lesara (played too innocently by Vicellous Reon Shannon) and the white extended family, Sam and Terry and Lisa, that fight to save Carter. There is no fire nor spirit in what they do, just a matter of fact, going through the motions. If there is any love between them, it doesn't show in any tangible way on screen. When we finally get to that touching scene in which Lesara says he will bust Ruben out, one way or another, he sobs openly on cue through an emotionless expression. There is the matter of Detective Della Pesca (a menancing Dan Hedaya) who has been a thorn to Ruben Carter since he was eleven. If this vendetta was indeed racially motivated, the film should have developed this villianous character more rather than merely using him as a straw man whenever the opportunity presented to put Carter 'in his place'. "The Hurricane" dishes out a story of racism and injustice without much fanfare nor conviction - like a boxing match that finishes the course without a knockout punch.