The Hurricane

This facile and unpersuasive film is based on the true story of Afro-American middleweight boxer Rubin 'Hurricane' Carter, who served 20 years in prison for a murder he didn't commit. The problem stems, one suspects, from Jewison's debt to a simpler age, when the '60s Civil Rights movement was at its peak. But it's another century, and racial politics have moved on, leaving Jewison, a veteran of liberal conscience movies, with his embarrassing white-people-can't-dance jokes, a toe-curling script and leaden stereotypes. Not to mention pale imitations of boxing scenes from Raging Bull. Washington can't be faulted as the wronged fighter, while Shannon shows promise as the teenager who inspires Carter to fight for his release. But both soon become powerless observers of their own lives, dependant on the whim of heroic white knights and authority figures.