The Hurricane
USA 1999
Reviewed by Richard Kelly
Synopsis
Our synopses give away the plot in full, including surprise twists.
1973. Black middleweight boxer Rubin 'Hurricane' Carter is in prison. 1966. Three whites are killed in a New Jersey barroom, and two black men are seen fleeing in a white car with out-of-state plates. Carter and young black friend John Artis, driving a similar vehicle, are arrested by detective Vincent Della Pesca.
Years later. Lesra Martin, a black boy tutored by three Canadian educationalists, reads Carter's autobiography. As a boy, Carter was railroaded into juvenile detention by Della Pesca. He escaped, joined the army and became a promising fighter, but Della Pesca oversaw his recapture. Carter emerged from prison to become a middleweight contender and public figure. Della Pesca convinced two petty criminals to testify they saw Carter and Artis fleeing the New Jersey barroom. In 1967 an all-white jury convicted the two men. Despite a prominent campaign supporting Carter and Artis, they lost a second trial in 1976. Lesra corresponds with Carter, visits him in prison, and introduces him to the Canadians. After a lost appeal that dispirits Carter, the Canadians offer support to his defence counsel. Della Pesca threatens them and their car is sabotaged, but they uncover papers which reveal that Della Pesca falsified evidence against Carter. In 1985 Carter gambles on appealing to a federal court. Judge Sarokin nullifies the convictions as unconstitutional.
Review
Norman Jewison barely gets 10 minutes into this workmanlike liberal biopic before his soundtrack makes the first of several nods to Bob Dylan's 'Hurricane', a magisterially detailed ballad about the iniquities that befell Rubin Carter. Jewison's film dutifully visualises what civil-rights students and Dylan fans already know of this notorious triple-murder frame. But its narrative structure and final act are indebted to Lazarus and the Hurricane, a book by Canadians Sam Chaiton and Terry Swinton about their relationship with Lesra Martin and their role in the efforts to win Carter's freedom.
In the opening reels, the structure of The Hurricane seems restless and inventive: we wonder if the film will tell us something sharp and unsettling about race-hate in the US. After all, Carter and Artis were wrongly convicted in the incendiary summer of 1967 and Carter was politically outspoken. Here, Carter is seen shaking his head over news footage of the Harlem riots, and an off-the-record barb about hunting down "nigger-hating cops" winds up in print, earning him a brick through his window. Meanwhile, in the film's present, young Lesra imbibes enough of Rubin's fierceness to accuse his Canadian teachers of salving their liberal guilt by undertaking his education.
But otherwise The Hurricane fights shy of evoking the climate of prejudice that condemned Carter and refuses to disquiet us by linking his plight to racist disgraces in the US today. As the synopsis above might attest, the drama is hung on a vendetta between a flawed-but-honourable man and a doggedly bad cop. Yes, it's Valjean and Javert, together again. Jewison frames Dan Hedaya's detective Della Pesca forever lurking at street corners and doorways, or stepping from the shadows to mutter some foul racist oath. The Hurricane's producers have insisted the film mounts an indictment of institutional racism which encompasses judges and prosecutors too, but you might have trouble figuring this out from what you're shown.
Moreover, the film's account of prison exposes the points where mainstream cinema always fumbles stories as harsh and unhappy as Carter's. As The Hurricane serves out his first stretch, he tells us in voiceover that bitter experience convinced him to train himself as a man-machine, his body a weapon. But this tragic, dehumanised sentiment is somehow rendered movie-sexy by a montage in which star Denzel Washington executes inverted push-ups as though auditioning for the Con Air sequel. Later there's a crucial, adventurous sequence, after Carter has refused prison fatigues in protest at his conviction and lands in solitary confinement ("The Hole") for weeks on end. There, Jewison tries to convey Carter's personality in collapse and Washington effects a convincing tussle between Carter's warring selves: a child who wants to sob, a fighter who wants to lash out, and the wiser head who knows the worst is still to come.
Nevertheless, the standard movie-ellipsis fails to give us much more than an inkling of how such deprivation might maim the spirit. An entire film could have been conjured out of that Hole. Thereafter, with the help of a very controlled performance from Washington, Jewison presents Carter as a stoic jailhouse intellectual, "Buddha in a ten-foot cell," as Dylan had it. Then there's a lousy, inevitable scene where the Canadians pay Rubin a visit. Carter rebuffs them tersely for their inability to understand the claustral, inhumane hell that is imprisonment. Trouble is, Jewison hasn't really given us the images to fit Carter's description. He's even issued Carter with a prison-guard pal, and when Carter is finally freed, there's a ticker-tape celebration in the jailhouse.
Of course, Jim Sheridan's drama of wrongful imprisonment In the Name of the Father was equally studio-slick and cavalier with the facts, but it worked because its Gerry Conlon protagonist was seen to be dime-a-dozen: a bit of an eejit, always likely to get himself in the wrong place. Rubin Carter, though, is plainly extraordinary. "How can the life of such a man/be in the palm of some fool's hands?" Dylan complained. But lesser men still fall into the same hands, and still find the law discriminates against class and colour. Very few can muster the resilience and dignity of Rubin Carter, and their stories are unlikely to be deemed sufficiently inspirational for Hollywood. While doing the rounds of US breakfast television for The Hurricane's opening weekend, Rubin Carter himself was respectfully asked if he was surprised by anything in the film. "I never knew," he professed with a very engaging grin, "that I was so pretty."
Credits
- Director
- Norman Jewison
- Producers
- Armyan Bernstein
- John Ketcham
- Norman Jewison
- Screenplay
- Armyan Bernstein
- Dan Gordon
- Based on 'The Sixteenth Round' by
- Rubin 'Hurricane' Carter and 'Lazarus and the Hurricane' by
- Sam Chaiton, Terry Swinton
- Director of Photography
- Roger Deakins
- Editor
- Stephen Rivkin
- Production Designer
- Philip Rosenberg
- Music
- Christopher Young
- ©Beacon Communications, LLC
- Production Companies
- Beacon Pictures presents
- an Azoff Films/Rudy Langlais production
- Executive Producers
- Rudy Langlais
- Thomas A. Bliss
- Marc Abraham
- Irving Azoff
- Tom Rosenberg
- William Teitler
- Co-producers
- Suzann Ellis
- Michael Jewison
- Jon Jashni
- Executive in Charge of Production
- Nancy Rae Stone
- Production Co-ordinators
- Janine Anderton
- Beacon:
- Richard Devinki
- New York Crew:
- Dawn Riley
- Unit Production Managers
- Matthew Hart
- New York Crew:
- Carol Cuddy
- Location Managers
- David Flaherty
- New York Crew:
- Mark Kamine
- Post-production Co-ordinator
- Dana L. Cuff
- Assistant Directors
- J.J. Authors
- Eric Potechin
- NY Crew:
- Paul F. Bernard
- Chris Surgent
- Doug Plassery
- Terry Ham
- Script Supervisor
- Samantha Armstrong
- Casting
- Avy Kaufman
- Toronto:
- Robin D. Cook
- Background:
- Donna Dupree-Taylor
- Associate:
- Beth Bowling
- Camera Operators
- Candide Franklyn
- Angelo Colavecchia
- New York Crew:
- Larry Huston
- Special Effects Co-ordinators
- Kaz Kobielski
- NY Crew:
- Peter Kunz
- New York Crew Computer Graphics
- Lane Glisson
- Art Directors
- Dennis Davenport
- New York Crew:
- Patricia Woodbridge
- Set Decorators
- Gordon Sim
- New York Crew:
- Ellen Christiansen
- Key Scenic Artist
- Rob McEune
- Storyboard Artist
- Kelly Brine
- Costume Designer
- Aggie Guerard Rodgers
- Costume Supervisor
- New York Crew:
- Sandra Leimbacher Weldon
- Wardrobe Supervisor
- Quita Alfred
- Make-up
- Key Artists:
- John Caglione Jr
- Irene Kent
- New York Crew Artist:
- Nina Port
- Hairstylists
- Key:
- David R. Beecroft
- Nathan Busch
- New York Crew Key:
- Nathan Busch
- Titles/Opticals
- Film Effects Inc
- Vocalists
- Barbara Morrison
- Jim Gilstrap
- Alvin Chea
- Conductor
- Pete Anthony
- Music Orchestrators
- Pete Anthony
- Jon Kull
- Christopher Young
- Additional Arranging
- Todd Cochran
- Music Supervisor
- G. Marq Roswell
- Score Co-ordinators
- David Reynolds
- Gernot Wolfgang
- Konstantinos Christides
- Sujin Nam
- Jasper Randall
- Kenneth Burgomaster
- Supervising Music Editor
- Thomas Milano
- Music Editor
- Tanya Noel Hill
- Music Recordist/Mixer
- Robert Fernandez
- Recordist
- John Rodd
- Stage Crew
- Tom Steel
- Damon Tedesco
- Stage Engineer
- Dennis Sager
- Executive Music Consultant
- Anita Camarata
- Music Consultant
- Danny Holloway
- Soundtrack
- "Hurricane" by Bob Dylan, Jacques Levy, performed by Bob Dylan; "Arabian Boogie" by Bulee 'Slim' Gaillard, Paul Mills, performed by Slim Gaillard; "I Don't Know" by Brook Benton, Bobby Stevenson, performed by Ruth Brown; "Can I Get a Witness" by Edward Holland Jr, Brian Holland, Lamont Dozier, performed by Marvin Gaye; "Treasure of Love" by Joe Shapiro, Lou Stallman, performed by Clyde McPhatter; "Gillette Look Sharp Match" by Mohlan Merrick; "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised" by/performed by Gill Scott-Heron; "Hard Times No One Knows", "A Fool for You" by/performed by Ray Charles; "In the Basement" by Billy Davis, Raynard Miner, Carl Smith, performed by Etta James; "It Could Happen to You" by Johnny Burke, James Van Heusen, performed by Dinah Washington; "So Amazing" by Clark Anderson, Summer Anderson; "Get Down on It" by Ronald Bell, James Taylor, George Brown, Robert Bell, Charles Smith, Robert Mickens, Eumir Deodato, performed by Kool & The Gang; "The Hurricane" by Tariq Trotter, Tracey Moore, Mercedes Martinez, Karl Jenkins, Lonnie Lynn, Dante Smith, Falana Brown, Scott Starch, performed by The Roots featuring Black Thought, Common, Most Def, Dice Raw, Flo Brown, JazzyFatNastees
- Sound Mixers
- Bruce Carwardine
- New York Crew:
- Frank Stettner
- Re-recording Mixers
- Don White
- Andy Koyama
- Tim O'Connell
- Brad Thornton
- Supervising Sound Editors
- Michael O'Farrell
- Wayne Griffin
- Dialogue Editor
- John Laing
- Sound Effects Editor
- Mark Gingras
- ADR
- Group Co-ordinator:
- Burton Sharp
- Foley
- Artists:
- Andy Malcolm
- Goro Koyama
- Mixer:
- Tony Van den Akker
- Stunt Co-ordinators
- John A. Stoneham Jr
- New York Crew:
- Peter Bucossi
- Boxing Sequences Co-ordinated by
- Ron Stein
- Cast
- Denzel Washington
- Rubin 'Hurricane' Carter
- John Hannah
- Terry
- Deborah Kara Unger
- Lisa
- Liev Schreiber
- Sam
- Vicellous Reon Shannon
- Lesra Martin
- David Paymer
- Myron Beldock
- Dan Hedaya
- Vincent Della Pesca
- Harris Yulin
- Leon Friedman
- Debbi Morgan
- Mae Thelma Carter
- Clancy Brown
- Lt Jimmy Williams
- Rod Steiger
- Judge Sarokin
- Garland Whitt
- John Artis
- Badja Djola
- Mobutu
- Vincent Pastore
- Alfred Bello
- Al Waxman
- warden
- David Lansbury
- US court prosecutor
- Chuck Cooper
- Earl Martin
- Brenda Thomas Denmark
- Alma Martin
- Marcia Bennett
- Jean Wahl
- Beatrice Winde
- Louise Cockersham
- Mitchell Taylor Jr
- young Rubin Carter
- Bill Raymond
- Paterson Judge
- Merwin Goldsmith
- Judge Larner
- John A. MacKay
- man at the falls
- Donnique Privott
- boy at the falls
- Moynan King
- Tina Barbieri
- Gary Dewitt Marshall
- Nite Spot cabbie
- John Christopher Jones
- reporter at bar
- Gwendolyn Mulamba
- Nite Spot woman
- Richard Davidson
- Paterson detective
- George Odom
- Big Ed
- Tonye Patano
- woman at prison
- Fulvio Cecere
- Paterson policeman
- Phillip Jarrett
- Rodney M. Jackson
- soldiers in USO Club
- Judi Embden
- woman in USO club
- Terry Claybon
- Emile Griffith
- Ben Bray
- Joey Giordello
- Michael Justus
- Joey Cooper
- Kenneth McGregor
- detective at hospital
- Frank Proctor
- Pittsburgh ring announcer
- Peter Wylie
- Pittsburgh referee
- David Gray
- Pittsburgh TV announcer
- Joe Matheson
- Philadelphia ring announcer
- Bill Lake
- Philadelphia TV announcer
- Robin Ward
- Reading, Pa TV announcer
- Harry Davis
- Reading, Pa referee
- Pippa Pearthree
- Patty Valentine
- Jean Daigle
- detective
- Robert Evans
- detective at Lafayette Bar
- Scott Gibson
- reporter at banquet
- Ann Holloway
- cashier
- Jim Bearden
- lieutenant
- Bruce McFee
- Conrad Bergschneider
- Satori Shakoor
- Zoran Radusinovic
- Stephen Lee Wright
- Michael Bodnar
- Carson Manning
- Deborah Ellen Waller
- Richard Litt
- Adam Large
- Douglas E. Hughes
- prison guards
- Peter Graham
- prisoner with camera
- George Masswohl
- mechanic
- Lawrence Sacco
- David Frisch
- New Jersey policemen
- Ralph Brown
- Federal Court assistant prosecutor
- Dyron Holmes
- reporter
- Ryan Williams
- Elstan Martin
- Bruce Vavrina
- St Joseph's doctor
- Brenda Braxton
- dancer with John Artis
- Christopher Riordan
- jury foreman
- Certificate
- 15
- Distributor
- Buena Vista International (UK)
- 13,088 feet
- 145 minutes 26 seconds
- Dolby digital/Digital DTS sound/SDDS
- Colour by
- DeLuxe