Review of The Hurricane (1999) by Shark M — 28 Apr 2010

"The Hurricane" utilizes the power behind the story by which it is influenced so effectively that viewers are left ravaged in its stirring, cataclysmic wake. Denzel Washington, of all of his tremendously poignant performances, delivers a knockout as Rubin "Hurricane" Carter, a middleweight title-contending boxer who, after being wrongfully convicted of a triple-murder, spent nearly twenty years in a New Jersey State Penitentiary before being released in 1985.

Years following the conviction of Rubin Carter, his autobiography ("The 16th Round", one of the works the film is based upon) was published, only to find its way into the hands of a young, uneducated African-American man named Lesra Martin (Vicellous Reon Shannon), whose aspirations to go to college are exceeded only by his motivation to prove Carter's innocence. Lesra's drive to free the man he believed to be unjustly imprisoned is supported by three Canadians, with whom he lives and receives a formal education from: Lisa Peters (Deborah Kara Unger), Sam Chaiton (Liev Schreiber), and Terry Swinton (John Hannah).

Sam Chaiton and Terry Swinton's real-life account "Lazarus and the Hurricane" (about the relationship between Lesra and Carter) was also used as inspiration for the film and, in addition to Carter's memoirs, was transposed into an extraordinarily rousing screenplay by Armyan Bernstein and Dan Gordon. Veteran director Norman Jewison ("In the Heat of the Night", "Moonstruck") concocts a pulpy middle to this rigid tale and elegantly puzzles together the life of Hurricane Carter, ultimately concluding in one of 1999's best, most triumphant pictures.

Sporting an Oscar-nominated performance from Washington, and an insightful -- though not fully accurate -- depiction of the life and times of a man whose story touched many people and inspired many things (including Bob Dylan's song "Hurricane", written in support of Carter's innocence), "The Hurricane" is a champion film and a Hollywood heavyweight you won't want to miss.