Denzel Washington offers a powerful performance as a proud, intelligent black man convicted of a crime he didn’t commit in “The Hurricane” (1999). Of course, it’s not surprising, since Washington has been nailing variations of the proud, intelligent black man since “A Soldier’s Story.” It would be fair to say Washington has become something like Gary Cooper, James Stewart or John Wayne in that the characters and the man have merged to form a single icon. Sometimes it can imprison an actor. Washington’s challenge, and ours, is to keep finding fresh nuance, as he did with his boxing champ here.
Archives for posts with tag: Harris Yulin
I first watched “Scarface” in the winter of 1984 at a theater in Hialeah, Fla. It was very controversial at the time (the film, not the theater). For the f-bombs (Cher saw it with young daughter Chastity and counted 77 of them). For the way it depicted South Florida as a drug-addled crime haven (tourism officials were not amused). But the organized crime story with a Cuban twist plays out like a violent Shakespearean tragedy that will appeal equally to Shakespeare lovers and violence lovers. How violent? Just wait for Al Pacino to shout, “Say hello to my little friend!”
If Mr. Wizard had been a Quinn Martin Production, it would have been “The American Side” (2016). Filmed in modern-day Buffalo but layered in 1970s TV detective show grit – right down to the vinyl-roofed 1973 Dodge Dart Swinger the protagonist drives – this film tries very, very hard to be cool without looking like it. It’s the movie version of the dude that spends 45 minutes on his carefree-looking hairstyle. It’s knockoff Members Only jackets, strippers and photographic blackmail versus electroshock therapy, death rays and secrets hidden in the waters around Niagara Falls. Whodunit? Done what? The murder or the scientific theory?
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