THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, September 6, 1994 TAG: 9409070675
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Movie Review
SOURCE: Mal Vincent
LENGTH: Medium: 89 lines
FRESH, A Riveting - and claustrophobic new look into the urban jungle of America, has a 12-year-old boy as its central character, but it is certainly not for children.
It is a relentless and uncompromising journey into a world in which drugs and crime are a casual way of life. Unlike the many other films set in the 'hood, it refuses to moralize. It shows us what it has to show and then sends us out of the theater aching.
For those who can take it, it is a quite important experience - saddening and yet curiously hopeful. It is the best film about the inner city experience since ``Boyz N the Hood,'' yet without the heavy-handedness of that impressive film.
Michael is a sixth-grader who worries about being late to school and lives with his loving aunt, silent grandmother and 11 cousins in a small but clean apartment in the Bushwick section of Brooklyn. On the way to school, he accepts a chocolate chip cookie from a nice woman while she prepares some heroin for him to deliver. On the streets he is known as Fresh, a smart and ambitious boy who knows the score and plays the game. He is a pawn of the heroin and crack dealers who use him for deliveries but, as it turns out, not as much a pawn as they think.
Fresh is liked by both the charismatic Esteban, the local heroin dealer, and the boisterous, thuggish Corky, the head of the neighborhood's crack industry.
The film is blessed with a fine ensemble cast, all of whom deliver compelling performances. Notable is the lean and threatening Giancarlo Esposito as Esteban, Fresh's idol. The dependable Samuel L. Jackson plays Fresh's estranged, alcoholic father.
Lending a sadly plaintive note is N'Bushe Wright as his beloved older sister, who is a heroin addict who has left the home to live with her latest supplier, Esteban.
The center of the film, though, is a 13-year-old actor named Sean Nelson, who creates a surprisingly complex title character that seems more presence than performance. Sullen and expressionless, he seldom suggests boyhood at all. Nelson, who has had some experience on television and in theater, contributes a memorable portrait of a child who is old beyond his years. It is only in the film's second half that we realize just what goes on behind those unfeeling eyes.
Fresh is shown the evils of his environment when his sister is ``lost'' via her addiction. He is also transformed by an unspeakably violent event in the neighborhood playground.
The film is weakest when it tries to draw a metaphor between the aggressive moves of speed chess and the battle of wits between rival gangsters. This never quite works - nor is it really necessary.
Boaz Yakin, heretofore a writer for mainstream Hollywood, makes an impressive directorial debut. He avoids the usual exploitation of violence. Yakin even forgoes the usual snippets from rap or pop music on the soundtrack in favor of an appropriately brooding and bluesy score by Stewart Copeland.
The finale is a complex and intriguing game of revenge that is enough to keep the audience guessing and frightened.
Yes, we've been on the mean streets before in films, but most of them exploited the situation and left us able to walk away from them. ``Fresh'' leaves us with the realization that this setting is a way of life, not a melodrama that can be controlled. Only in a lone moment do we see tears in the eyes of the boy - tears that reveal that he actually did feel something, anything, about the games he has seemingly been forced to play.
``Fresh'' is not for those who merely want action or simple solutions to problems. We leave the theater hoping that it is not ``realistic'' but knowing that this environment will leave this boy scarred for life.
Surely not for the squeamish, this film will send you away with scars of your own. ILLUSTRATION: Color Miramax photos
Samuel L. Jackson, left, and Sean Nelson play father and son in
"Fresh," an unflinching look at a kid caught in the urban drug
trade.
N'Bushe Wright portrays a heroin addict.
Graphic
Movie Review
"Fresh"
Rated: R (extreme violence, language, drugs,``realism'')
Starring: Sean Nelson, Giancarlo Esposito, Samuel L. Jackson,
N'Bushe Wright
Director and Writer: Boaz Yakin
Mal's rating: three stars
by CNB