Close, but no cigar

Rating: 7/10 (13 January 2000)

Okay, here we go again. This film is a solid film. But it is not really that great. Don't get me wrong, it does have a few good things about it. But first things first. This film is yet another example of a film that fails to realize that there can be more than one strong performance in a film. The films casting agents had the good idea of casting David Paymer, Harris Yulin, Liev Schreiber, Deborah Unger, and John Hannah in supporting roles. The problem is that they were giving little, if anything, to do. Mr. Paymer, who proves his worth time and again in films, is reduced down to some mugging and about two lines of dialougue. Mr. Yulin gets even less as his co-counsel. Mr. Hannah's character is not defined at all, and he too is not given anything to do other than to fill up the screen. Ms. Unger is given one scene of affection with Mr. Washington, but the scene is awkward and one is left feeling that there was something between her character and The Hurricane that the film makers chose to leave out (some sort of romance or something along those lines). Mr. Schreiber is given 'stuff' to do, but it seems that this 'stuff' is in the film only to boost the film's running time. The worst offense comes with Mr. Hedaya. Here is a true actors actor that proves that he can chew scenery with the best of 'em (if you don't believe me, check out the much over looked and recent video release DICK). Mr. Hedaya plays the heavy, but his legs are cut from under him in the middle of the movie, for no reason, and he really looks like he pained over this for the rest of the film. The film does not even give him the comeuppance that his character, and the audience, deserves. The other real problem with the film is that a lot of critics have come out saying not only that the film is more fiction than fact, and that the true story would have made a more compelling film.
Now for the good stuff. Mr. Washington's performance is a hurricane indeed. He is sheer pleasure to watch as he goes through a transformation similar to what he did in Spike Lee's MALCOLM X and in Edward Zwick's GLORY. The many faces of pride that he manages to show us is reason enough to see the film, and he deserves every accolade that he gets for this performance (only Russell Crowe's performance as Jim Wigand in THE INSIDER stands a chance to beat him this year). The real reason to pay to see the movie is to see what Mr. Washington and Mr. Jewison concoct in their second collaboration (first cam A SOLDIER'S STORY) inside the boxing ring.
In the boxing ring, the film is poetry in motion. Not since Martin Scorsese and Robert DeNiro decided to make motion picture history in RAGING BULL has boxing looked so poetic on film. And that is quite the compliment considering ROCKY, THE BOXER, and FIGHT CLUB are all in the same broad genre.
Unfortunately, the boxing sequences far outshine the rest of the film, crippled as mentioned above. Where ROCKY, THE BOXER, FIGHT CLUB, and RAGING BULL managed to keep everything looking just as good, this film does not. The prison sequences are no where near as intense as in THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION, and no where near as menacing as in SLEEPERS.

This film is gloomy-day entertainment, at best.