The Hurricane
dir. Norman Jewison
Universal

Sometimes you can try your hardest to succeed and still have your efforts sabotaged by a well-meaning collaborator. So goes The Hurricane, Norman Jewison's (Moonstruck) latest picture, which stars Denzel Washington and Vicellous Reon Shannon.

Washington's portrayal of Rubin "The Hurricane" Carter, a championship-level boxer serving time in a New Jersey prison for murders he didn't commit, is first-rate. Whether he's stepping into the ring, knocking back a few beers or tearfully telling his wife not to visit him anymore, Washington — himself clearly inspired — pulls us into Carter's gripping story.

That story was, for a time, a top cause for political activists. Scores volunteered time and money to help Carter's appeal. His lawyers even worked for free, and Bob Dylan penned the protest song "The Hurricane," which is featured prominently on the film's stellar soundtrack.

But Jewison's film is as much about Lesra Martin's (Shannon) story as it is about Carter's. Lesra, a clearly intelligent young man who graduated third in his inner city high school class hardly knowing how to read, chances upon a worn copy of Carter's autobiographical "The Sixteenth Round."

With the encouragement of three barely-sketched-out benefactors (John Hannah, Liev Schreiber and Deborah Kara Unger), Lesra plows through the book, driven onward by Carter's strong will and forceful personality. Upon finishing the book, Lesra is moved to write Carter, and the two characters eventually meet.

Lesra, whose own father is an alcoholic do-nothing, gains a surrogate father. In turn, the previously self-isolated Carter gains a new source of inspiration and joy after he meets Lesra and his Canadian benefactors.

On this level, "The Hurricane" succeeds mightily. Washington and Shannon's performances make Carter and Martin's bond seem palpable. When the characters begin corresponding and meet for the first time, you can't help but feel uplifted.

But this is a Hollywood film about a wrongly-imprisoned, forgotten celebrity and a neglected inner city youth taking each other to new emotional heights. For there to be a happy ending, you just know Carter has to get out of prison somehow.

And it's precisely how Jewison goes about getting Carter out of prison that causes the film to miss the mark in spots. Once Lesra and his sponsors decide to dedicate their time to Carter's woebegone appeal, the uplifting father-son type story takes a backseat to what is essentially an oversimplified, run-of-the-mill courtroom drama.

Here, Jewison employs all of that genre's familiar tricks, from the overconfident "bad guy" lawyer representing the state to the wizened old appeals judge who "surprises" everyone by not throwing out Carter's appeal for having new evidence and again "surprises" everyone with his decision.

It's hard to fault Jewison for all of this. After all, "The Hurricane" is based on a true story. What is not forgivable is his falling back on cliches, particularly in the courtroom scenes. Perhaps the film's weakest moment is when — as the judge is giving the speech leading up to his decision — Unger's character leans over to the person standing next to her and says something to the effect of, "Rubin's going to lose." As if, after two-and-a-half hours of high drama and tense legal proceedings, Jewison really thinks we'll swallow the notion that the film's going to end with Carter back in the slammer.

But somehow, whenever Jewison's foibles threaten to eclipse career performances by Washington and Shannon, we're given another great scene with the two actors convincingly trading incredibly written dialog. The entire courtroom drama screw-up is counteracted in an impeccable scene with Washington and Shannon.

This odd sense of timing counteracts fumblings by a normally-more-than-capable director. The net effect of all of Jewison's courtroom cliches and big-budget sappiness is that what could have been a great movie ends up as merely a good one.

— Eric Wittmershaus (ericw at flakmag dot com)