Word: jewison
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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STARRING: Denzel Washington DIRECTOR: Norman Jewison OPENS: limited Dec. 29; wide...
...austerity of Carter's prison life does not offer many opportunities for electrifying moviemaking, but The Hurricane is nevertheless a thoughtful and even inspiring film. That's not just because of the way it celebrates Carter's self-discipline, but because the director, Norman Jewison, enforces the contrast between his stoicism and the efforts of the unlikely team of '60s activists that eventually came to his rescue...
...something different about an Oscar-worthy movie. It is larger than life, it has grand themes on love and life, it is supposed to inspire, thrill, move. In short, it is Dances With Wolves grand, it is Saving Private Ryan intense, it is The English Patient complex. Director Norman Jewison's (Moonstruck, Agnes of God) latest offering, The Hurricane, aspires to be an Oscar movie. It is lush, it is serious and boy does it try to stuff itself full with Oscar-worthy themes...
...something else altogether: a critique of the American judicial system even up to the 1990's, where the hand-in-hand complicity of police and the justice system prevents Carter's release from prison in order to cover up police corruption in New Jersey. With dizzying rapidity, Jewison now whips up righteous lawyers who passionately rail against the judicial system as well as shady police officers who threaten the three Canadians who decide to rally to Carter's cause. And as if we weren't more than inundated with inspirational themes, we even have a parallel story of another poor...
...while all four possibilities for this movie were certainly interesting, put them together and you get a movie that just tries too hard to accomplish too much. And what suffers the most? Explanations and motives for half of the movie, which, Jewison, in trying to incorporate every Oscar-worthy theme in filmmaking, has no choice but to leave out in a movie that is already very long. So we're never given a real reason as to why the ridiculously sinister Depalowski goes out of his way to persecute (and believe me, he really goes...