Such a saga is both very similar to and very different from all of the great character stories of the last ten years. It has the potential to be a very dry examination of the corrupt nature of the American judicial system of the 1960s and 1970s, but as Rubin Carter might have said, it transcends the boundaries of the conventional wronged individual tale. Director Norman Jewison and star Denzel Washington combine efforts to lend an impassioned, heartfelt touch to the Rubin Carter story, and in the process create an engaging, powerful drama based on a real-life story.

      Film critic Roger Ebert remarked of the film, "I was amazed, after feeling some impatience in the earlier reaches of the film, to find myself so deeply absorbed in its second and third acts." These sentiments are most exactly true of The Hurricane, and its only flaw is that it takes too long to get to the really good parts. The movie opens in 1963 at the welterweight title bout between Rubin Carter and Emile Griffith, a sequence which is shot entirely in black and white and features some of the most fantastic, energetic boxing footage that Hollywood has ever captured. With help from editor Stephen Rivkin, director Jewison skillfully eliminates any hint of slowness or lethargy from the ring. The boxers are two finely-tuned machines of destruction whose only purpose in life has been as a refined weapon of muscle and bone. Star Denzel Washington is amazingly in top condition, and the dedication with which he prepared himself is immediately evident. Quite often trade ! magazines and news reports will make mention of a star gaining weight to fit a particular role, but more commendable are the pains taken to squeeze down into a part. Much like conditioning endured by the ensemble cast of 1998's Saving Private Ryan, the exercise has surely helped the actor become the role.

      And thus what Tom Hanks is to Caucasian actors, so is Denzel Washington to African-American actors. He has established himself as one of the players to remember of the last decade, and has capped a string of solid performances with a memorable turn as the boxer Rubin Carter. The title character is indeed one of conflictxing emotions, like many of the big roles of 1999's holiday season, but in comparison Washington has crossed the line where it is impossible to distinguish the actor from the character. This is, without a doubt, one of the finest performances of the year.

      Watching the arc of Rubin Carter is also one of the most redeeming things about watching The Hurricane. Norman Jewison's film is deliberately crafted to be a powerful drama, and in this overt care is the filmmaker's only misstep. Unlike the great films of the decade, it does not smoothly flow, as all good drama must. Like 1999's The Green Mile, it is a textbook manifestation of an excellent movie, meeting expected standards at every measure, and yet it is missing the key component of excellence that is the factor of ease. Certain plot elements, such as the inclusion of a racially-motivated Patterson detective named Vincent Della Pesca (Dan Hedaya) or the presence of Carter's wife Mae Thelma (Debbi Morgan) are cumbersome voices of reality which could've been dropped without much loss.

      But it's worth sitting through, as Roger Ebert said, to get to the second and third acts. Though the film runs almost 150 minutes long, it starts to pick up speed around the 60-minute mark. It's around this time that the movie fast-forwards to the early 1980s and focuses on a group of Canadians living in Toronto at the time. Sam Chaiton (Liev Schreiber), Terry Swinton (John Hannah), and Lisa Peters (Deborah Kara Unger), foster parents for a Brooklyn youth named Lesra Martin (Vicellous Reon Shannon), become aware of the case when Lesra buys a copy of The Sixteenth Round at a used book sale. Lesra writes to Rubin and eventually goes to meet him in New Jersey, and shortly thereafter the rest of the Canadians move to New Jersey and slowly but surely begin to work on Carter's case. All of this leads up to the film's most poignant scene in the Federal courthouse, with Rod Steiger culling the most from the character of Judge H. Lee Sorokin.

      The actors playing the group of Canadians is the line to the anchor that is Denzel Washington. Schreiber, Unger, and Hannah are all solid, but the true star is Vicellous Shannon, who develops a palpable amount of chemistry with Washington. Some of the movie's best scenes are when the two actors are alone onscreen and share touching moments of kinship.

      Needless to say, Jewison's film will be a smashing success, both with audiences and with critics. It has all the right moves and is beset only by a deliberate style in its opening hour. Once it escapes that -- transcends that -- it's a fine drama. Yes, that's the story of The Hurricane, and it's definitely one worth seeing.

Craig Roush, 1999