Antwone Fisher: Destruction of the pro-military apologue
Written: Feb 20 '03 (Updated Feb 20 '03)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: well performed by most
Cons: many
The Bottom Line: Disturbingly bad. *1/2
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| Pffrdfdus7's Full Review: Antwone Fisher |
Narrow and feeble in consideration, construction and execution, Denzel Washington’s debut, Antwone Fisher, is a grand faux pas in the scheme of invoking discounted sentiment into the bio-pic, and consciously deciding to ape hacks like Tim Story and George Tillman Jr. as well as their great antecedent Spike Lee. The film is a formidable yawn and a far cry from anything particularly pretentious, a point on its side, though that may not be saying much. Instead, Antwone Fisher secretes heaps of emotional goo in such a copious inundation that the amateur writing would undermine the insipid directing if it didn’t undermine on its own brummagem overstatements of sentimentality. Labored to an nth degree and myopically underwritten so as to vent disgust for his own real life, Antwone Fisher’s (who adapts a screenplay from his own book) Cinderella story as a Sony gate security guard turned writer omens as doomed fodder for cynicism and ersatz gold for idyllic viewers.
Disgusting as inspiration and overwrought with a featherweight hand, Antwone Fisher exceeds its embankment of maudlin tripe, rampages into mad repugnance, fumes ill-founded racist undertones, and utters subliminal contempt for its intended (and unintended) docile audiences. It’s the kind of treacle prey chewed to pieces by fearless contemporaries, and ultimately awarded with subsequent clapping sessions after its torturous running time finally extinguishes, that the claps go undeserved almost goes without saying. That Washington seems to have envisioned the seed of interest in the material is understandable (there’s allusions to the tradition of coming-of-age in the pre/post-civil rights movement often displayed in literature such as in Richard Wright’s wonderful Black Boy) but to champion himself adept enough for steering this manure truck is not only bad judgment but a bawdy act of career castration. A suggestion: hire a no-name hack to handle the reins (e.g. Nick Cassavetes, son of the famed John, who saddled the ridiculous John Q project) to disguise any ill-advised foolhardiness and compliment your once-prosperous career of fine performances by coolly acquitting yourself of the mess. That said and done, I still respect the actor quite a bit, and his performance here is fine enough to confirm that.
Sociopathic and deeply troubled sailor twentysomething, Antwone Fisher (a fairly impressive Derek Luke), fights at the drop of a hat among his shipmates, misbelieving them to be racist (despite himself being quite dissimilar to the modern standard of African-American-ness) and homophobes, only to be referred to the care of fair-hearted Navy psychologist Jerome Davenport (Washington). At first a stubborn Fisher refuses to discuss his issues until he sees the good of it all in Davenport’s kindly ways, after which he spills his guts. His tiresome story chronicles his tumultuous life as raised primarily by an abusive foster family composed of various clichés, urchins and orphans, and befriending nincompoop gang-bangers. A young Fisher was subjected to awkward torture, punishment and near sexual enslavement, relentlessly perused by a foul-mouthed matriarchal figure. He relates his life story, gains Davenport’s friendship, finds discomfited love, and travels across the country to find his biological family, all tidily wrapped up in a good sit-com-movie-adaptation length.
Quiet moments in Antwone Fisher, scathed by its quality of humdrum television melancholy, are occasionally well-exposed, but are often mostly so laden with chestnuts and emotional debaucheries that any would-be-hubris has very little room to breath on the already crowded platter. Various scattered scenes manipulate a forced “homeboy” routine so woefully conceived its authenticities become as cardboard as the theatre display quoting Joel Siegel’s misguided: “a film that may change people’s lives.” Anticipated scenes of Fisher’s biological odyssey perpetuate the film’s unvarying let-downs and pride grandmotherly African-American stereotypes as if they abetted some imperative racial instances. Endlessly is Washington’s debut (and at this rate, hopefully his only) as a cheap haranguing of racism, politics and family relations, mordant in its depictions and despicably perverse in its inexplicable manipulations and underdeveloped fabrications. Not so much a disappointment as it is a disheartening fulfillment of expectations.
Recommended:
No
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Epinions.com ID:
Pffrdfdus7
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Member: Randall Leong
Location: Sunnydale, CA
Reviews written: 56
Trusted by: 181 members
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