strong

Rating: Null/10 (21 March 2000)

Rubin Hurricane Carter was in real life an African American who spent nearly half of his life in prison in the U.S. on trumped up charges. He was also, when out of prison, a successful professional fighter. While he was locked up he wrote an impassioned book about his experience; a book that drew liberal activists to his cause and inspired the Dylan hit song `Hurricane'.
Denzel Washington plays the part of Carter with convincing passion and with great restraint. There is no doubt that director Norman Jewison has fictionalised the story but that's does not detract from the essential facts and certainly makes for strong drama.
For instance Carter married and later divorced the Deborah Unger character after release, there were nine activists not three, and the lawyers had much more to do with the case.
The Hurricane won't tell you anything your didn't know already, unless you haven't realised how good an actor Denzel Washington is or perhaps if you were under the illusion that the U.S. judicial system isn't racist. But you will definitely be impressed by a terrific, Oscar nominated performance from the lead actor.
On the debit side the last third seems a bit hurried and the whole effort is depressing. Carter in jail in desperation silently crying I'm 50, Get me out!' was as moving a film moment as I've seen.
But now I'll repeat if you don't mind some statistics I gathered from Amnesty International regarding death row inmates in the U.S. They were originally presented with my review for The Green Mile.
Bearing in mind that we now have an Australian state government calling for the death penalty, not to mention a particularly regrettable, recent Australian death in custody.
There have been 598 recorded executions in the USA, of which 97 were in 1999: 142 by electrocution, 2 by firing squad, 11 by gas chamber, 3 by hanging and 440 by lethal injection. More than 3300 are on death row now in the US. Your colour matters. For example, of the 124 prisoners from Philadelphia on death row as of October 1998, only 15 were white.
Rubin Carter must have been luckily not to be in one of the States in the U.S. where they kill their prisoners
Texan Governor and the probable next U.S. President George W. Bush has presided over more than 100 of those deaths and no doubt would have had the innocent Rubin Carter executed if given the opportunity.