THE HURRICANE

THE HURRICANE is a powerful, very moral movie. It combines the best that good drama offers including courtroom suspense, scrambles for evidence, the woes of prison, and a murder mystery tied with the high conflict of racial injustice and competitive sports. Starring Denzel Washington in a role worthy of his talent, the movie tells the true story of the life of boxing great Rubin ‘Hurricane’ Carter and his multiple unjust imprisonments and the friends he makes that bust him loose.

Flip-flopping back and forth through time, the story begins with Rubin as an 11-year-old boy. One day, a seemingly prosperous adult white man comes up to one of Rubin’s friends and makes some overt sexual advances toward him. Rubin tells the man to back off, but the man does not. Rubin throws a bottle that crashes over the man’s head. When the man grabs Rubin, Rubin stabs the man’s arm with a knife. A corrupt racist attorney (played by Dan Hedaya) makes sure that Rubin is sent off to youth detention for 10 years. Rubin escapes and joins the army. He is caught, however, finishes his time and trains to become a prizefighter.

For 10 years, he fights and becomes a world-class contender. Then, he is once again framed by the corrupt racist attorney, convicted of a murder he didn’t commit and put into prison. Fueled by hate, Rubin refuses to put on prison clothes and instead wears pajamas. Rubin decides to beat the system by not allowing himself any luxuries that can be taken away from him. He also sleeps when everyone is awake and wakes when everyone sleeps. The only luxuries he has are reading and writing his memoirs, which he publishes around 1970.

Seven years later, an urban, teenage African-American boy named Lesra Martin (Vicellous Reon Shannon) gets the chance to learn how to read from three Canadians, Terry (John Hannah), Sam (Liev Schreiber) and Deborah (Deboarah Unger), who run a sort of live-in educational center. Lesra picks up Rubin’s book THE 16th ROUND and is completely transformed by it. When he is finished, he wants to not only meet Rubin, but also free him. Eventually, Lesra and his teachers move to New Jersey and tell Rubin that they are committed to staying there as long as it takes to free him. With physical threats and a corrupt legal system still in place, including the presence of his old nemesis, the attorney, the freedom fighters, Rubin and Rubin’s attorneys go all the way to the New Jersey Federal Court for justice.

To call Denzel Washington’s performance amazing is an understatement. Within the one film, he displays nearly the entire context of human emotion. He is a man who goes from hate to love, unforgiveness to forgiveness and hopelessness to hopeful. Though underprivileged as a youth, he is determined to succeed through hard work. His only displayed sin is some adulterous flirting, but he doesn’t commit adultery. In prison, Rubin does whatever he can to keep himself strong, mentally and physically. He reads voraciously, including the Bible. When his friend Lesra comes to visit him, he says it is just like Lazarus, a man risen from the dead. He also reads aloud the 23rd Psalm.

Objectionable content is limited, in spite of the R-rating. Hedaya, of course, is an unrepentant racist and is the biggest villain in the movie. His buddy is also deplorable, because he threatens a child with homosexual rape. Obscenities are heard from some prisoners. Violence includes a car crash and the after-effects of murder, including the image of a few bloody corpses, but they are brief. Direction, cinematography and other acting are excellent all around, though the teamwork of the Canadian teachers becomes a little like Encyclopedia Brown-type crime solving.

The drama of THE HURRICANE lies in the metamorphosis, from isolation to friendship, from bondage to freedom, from darkness to light. The spiritual analogies are acute, and the movie doesn’t ignore that, allowing Scripture to season and define Rubin’s experience. Like CRY FREEDOM and A TIME TO KILL, this movie covers familiar territory, injustices done toward blacks, but, also like those movies, these are stories that transcend race and speak to all of us who are in bondage and need freedom. Freedom always comes from a redeemer, someone who is willing to pay the price to loose those who cannot set themselves free. It is a universal truth, and the Truth, Jesus Christ, did it for us for all time. Hence, THE HURRICANE reflects the most wonderful story of all, and does it with much dignity and care.