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The Hurricane [HD DVD] [2000] [US Import]


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Editorial
Amazon.co.uk Review

In his direction of The Hurricane, veteran filmmaker Norman Jewison understands that slavish loyalty to factual detail is no guarantee of compelling screen biography. In telling the story of boxer Rubin "Hurricane" Carter--who was wrongly convicted of murder in 1967 and spent nearly two decades in jail--Jewison and his screenwriters compress time, combine characters, and rearrange events with a nonchalance that would be galling if they didn't remain honest to the core truth of Carter's ordeal. Because of that emotional integrity--and because Denzel Washington brings total conviction to his title role--The Hurricane rises above the confines of biographical fidelity to embrace higher values of courage, compassion, and ultimate justice.

Jewison is woefully heavy-handed in his treatment of the fictionalised, absurdly villainous detective (Dan Hedaya) who zealously plots to keep Carter in jail, and anyone familiar with Carter's story may object to the film's simplified account. But what matters here is the shining star of hope that is Lesra (Vicellous Reon Shannon), the Brooklyn teenager who rejuvenates Carter's legal battle in the early 1980s. This surrogate father-son relationship is what revives Carter's hope for family and future, and makes The Hurricane so engrossing and emotionally effective. Lesra's real-life Canadian mentors are compressed from nine characters to three, but their efforts are superbly dramatised, and Jewison hits the small but important grace notes that make a good film even better. By its final scenes, The Hurricane conveys the rich, rewarding satisfaction of surviving a difficult but valuable journey of mind, body, and soul.--Jeff Shannon, Amazon.com


Hurricane
Review date: 2007-12-16 Rating: 10 out of 10

This film will change your life. If you ever feel low and that life has dealt you some cruel blows, you have to watch this. Nothing you have been through can compare to this and who can have the strength to deal that all Hurricane had on his plate? An innocent man with a shining future in boxing, he was to spend most of his life in jail for a crime he did not commit, all because of the intense hatred of one man. And if you ever feel that you are too insignificant to make a difference, see how one young boy changed what no one else could, with his love, his fire and his determination. You will cry, you will cheer, and you will be glad you have the life you do.

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Reviews


Justice could really be for all !
Review date: 2006-08-08 Rating: 10 out of 10

This film is a true story. It is important for you to know that because some of the facts and reactions seem excessive, and yet... It all starts with a bunch of rowdy black kids who run across an older white man, a local personality who starts playing with these boys of ten or eleven and these boys decide to fight against it, probably without knowing what they were fighting against, except that it was not correct to let an older white man touch you if you were a little black boy. Local police and justice officials will go along a road that leads the same boy who is arrested for « molesting » the older man to a triple death sentence for a triple murder that he never committed and that will never be investigated properly. The film is absolutely outstanding because it sets the emphasis on this black man, an ex-world champion in boxing, transcending this fate and getting so high in his meditation that he is truly free in prison and truly divine in his mind. This Hurricane thus set as an example and model to anyone whose freedom is endangered, we can move to the 15 year old black boy from Brooklyn who buys and reads Rubin Carter's book in a booksale for 25 cents. His own life is a series of accidental cicumstances that lead him from deprevation among alcoholics to some achievement in a « host family » in Canada. This black boy, Lesra, identifies with Rubin and gets involved in his case. His Canadian guardians get along with this involvement and they will eventually bring the truth out and convince a federal court that the man is innocent and has to be released from prison immediately. What is important here is how these people react and organize their search and how it succeeds thanks to some nearly immaterial circumstances that go their way and not the simple automatic and habitual way. It is such cases that justify people in thinking there is hope in our societies where the poor cannot have any justice at all because they cannot afford good lawyers from the very start, and later on it is too late : the initial damage can rarely be redeemed, and yet some cases are there to prove it could, even if it does not most of the time. This is one of the films that should be studied in details in all high schools all over the world.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University of Paris Dauphine & University of Paris I Pantheon-Sorbonne


Unbelievable
Review date: 2006-02-08 Rating: 10 out of 10

A trully amazing film - If there were an option for 10 stars it would get it.
Its a MUST WATCH regardless of your tastes.

Excellent but not all that true
Review date: 2005-06-29 Rating: 10 out of 10

Title says it all really, meant to based on a true story but a lot of facts have bee left out, Still an excellent film but loses its appeal once you find out the true story. Search internet for more details.....

The Hurricane
Review date: 2005-06-14 Rating: 8 out of 10

The Hurricane is the bio-documentary / dramatised life story of Rubin "The Hurricane" Carter, a black Afro-American boxer who was wrongly jailed for murder in 1967 and spent the best part of the next two decades in jail trying to clear his name.

On a pure dramatic film basis this is perhaps one of the best ever portrayals of a tortured soul I have ever seen. Denzel Washington is simply spellbinding as the tragic Carter and produces one of the finest ever film performances in recent years. Apart from the wonderful solo scenes he also works brilliantly well with Vicellous Reon Shannon, who plays Lesra Martin, the young student who becomes the catalyst for Carter to once again fight for his freedom.

There are so other great supporting roles from the rest of the cast including all three of Liev Schriber, Deborah Kara Unger and John Hannah who play the three guardians of Lesra. And great to see Clancy Brown again, and this time playing a nice prison guard as opposed to his usual roles!

After watching the film it was slightly disappointing to find out however that the director had taken great liberties with the "true" story and although the film does contain a "disclaimer" at the start it was still unsatisfactory to discover that perhaps Rubin Carter wasn't the total innocent soul the film portrays. That said it does explain some of the more disjointed scenes in the film but doesn't excuse them. Both the scene when Carter as a young boy stabs the white man and the scene when he returns from the Army to be immediately arrested by the waiting Detective Della Pesca are head scratching to say the least and stick out like sore thumbs. When you discover that Carter stabbed the man in a robbery and that Della Pesca was a completely fictional character you do feel slightly cheated.

As I say fantastic performance by Washington but a star lost for making Carter into an angel when making a film about him being a wrongly convicted devil would have been just as effective.

Product Details/Specifications


Actor(s):
Deborah Kara Unger
Liev Schreiber
Vicellous Reon Shannon
Denzel Washington
John Hannah

Creators:
Denzel Washington (Primary Contributor)
Vicellous Reon Shannon (Primary Contributor)
Armyan Bernstein (Producer)
Armyan Bernstein (Writer)
Irving Azoff (Producer)
Dan Gordon (Writer)
Rubin 'Hurricane' Carter (Writer)
Sam Chaiton (Writer)
Terry Swinton (Writer)

Director(s):

Recording label: Universal Studios
Manufacturer: Universal Studios
EAN: 0025193282927
Binding: HD DVD
Number of items: 1
Format: AC-3, Closed-captioned, Colour, Dolby, Dubbed, Subtitled, Widescreen,
Release date: 2007-08-28
Universal product code (UPC): 025193282927
Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
Running time: 145 minutes
Theatrical release date: 2000-01-14
Language: English (Original Language)
Language: English (Subtitled)
Language: French (Subtitled)
Language: French (Dubbed)

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