Antwone Fisher

  

Written by Antwone Fisher

Directed by Denzel Washington

 

Starring: Derek Luke, Malcolm David Kelley, Cory Hodges and Denzel Washington

 

Rated PG-13 for violence, language and mature thematic material involving child abuse

Runtime: 120 minutes

 

“Antwone Fisher” is the story of a man who beat the odds to maintain his sanity in the face of crushing hardships on every front.  Denzel Washington’s first shot at directing is one of the most precise and hard-hitting films you can see today: a no-nonsense look at the tough side of life in the gritty neighborhoods of Cleveland in the late ’60s and ‘70s, and the tough side of being a person without an identity.   Inspired by the realism of Spike Lee’s great “Do the Right Thing,” Antwone Fisher is Mookie with some very explicit baggage and a tough row to hoe.

 

The screenplay is written by Fisher and based on the story of his life growing up in Cleveland and his early years in the Navy.  He was a security guard working at the gate at Sony pictures when his story got around and aroused some interest on the lot.  He turned out to be a pretty-good writer with a better than pretty-good story to tell.  Born in prison, his mother named him after Fats Domino (real name Antoine Domino).  Antwone was placed in an orphanage until his mother was released, but she never came to pick him up.  The movie doesn’t tell you much about her life, but then it doesn’t have to.  You can figure it out.

 

While Antwone was still an infant, his father was shot and killed by a girlfriend in a Cleveland tenement.  Fisher was adopted by a family and spent his developing years in the dubious care of the half-mad Reverend Tate and his vicious wife, played heavy as a sledge hammer by Novella Nelson.  Mrs. Tate passes her own submerged helplessness and anger on to her foster son and his two hapless foster brothers, flogging them mentally and physically as she was flogged.  Which brings us to the unique genius of this movie, its ability to portray the legacy of the ugliness of ghetto life with honestly and clarity and without descending into maudlin exploitation.  Tate was made what she was by her people and Fisher was made what he is by Tate; victims of the despair of the black malaise.  Institutionalized by the modern industrialized ghetto, they build cars by day and live the nihilistic lifestyle of the modern slave by night.

 

The adult Fisher is played by Derek Luke, a young actor with a big future, even if there are a few minefields left to cross (if you get a chance to see Fisher in “Biker Boyz,” pass it up.  See this movie twice instead).  Fisher as a child is played by Malcolm David Kelley and as a teenager by Cory Hodges, both of whom do great jobs with very demanding parts.  It is Kelley and Hodges who interact with the insanely violent ma Tate and her psycho baby-sitter Nadine (Yolonda Ross).  Growing up in this hell on earth, Antwone’s only refuge is with his friend Jesse, to whom he runs “because when I was with him, I didn’t get beat up.”

 

When, as a teenager, Antwone finally rebels against Tate, he is thrown out of the house and finds his way into the Navy.  Most of the movie revolves around Fisher’s interaction with the psychiatrist Jerome Davenport (Denzel Washington), a man devoted to his profession, but fighting his own devils as he fights Fisher’s.  Fisher is sent to Davenport as part of a routine disciplinary action resulting from a ship-board brawl.  The young man refuses to talk about his past, but the psychiatrist doesn’t give up.  He knows about the stoicism of the black man, especially as imbued by the military.  Eventually Fisher opens up and through flashbacks the audience and Davenport learn about Fisher’s life bit by piercing bit.

 

In revealing the details of Fisher’s life, the pacing of the movie adopts a very powerful “step-forward, step-back” rhythm.  There is a hint of success after the first meeting, another blow-up and back to step one.  Then a healing revelation, another blow-up and back again.  But back not quite as far as before.  As we see Fisher probing the painful recesses of his mind, we sense that Davenport is doing the same thing with his own demons.  There is not one patient in Dr. Davenport’s office, but two.  When Fisher finally comes out of his shell with the last revelation to Davenport, the doctor tells him that their therapy is over and Fisher has to take the next, final step.  He has to find and confront his family with the story of his life.

 

This begins Antwone’s remarkable search for the impossible; his search for the threads of his relations among the rubble of America’s untouchable class.  The quest for forgotten truths that most people would rather keep buried.  Starting with clues that are laughable in their infirmity, Antwone doggedly tracks his past and the society that caused it, and touches everyone around him in the process.

 

As this quixotic search is taking place in motel rooms and tenements, Davenport is searching his own mind as well.  Things are not going well in his life, either, and the doctor is forced to heal himself.  Just as Antwone is forced to deal with his shattered family, the psychiatrist is forced to deal with his own mortality and confront his own doubts about his manhood. 

 

Although this is a mentor movie similar to the Robin Williams/ Matt Damon blockbuster “Good Will Hunting,” Denzel Washington takes on a harder chore in directing this story.  He has to show the black condition and deal with the facts of child abuse in the context of a mainstream picture.  His success in doing this is especially commendable in light of this movie’s PG-13 rating.  He paints a powerful picture of very bad things without exploitation.  Washington should also be commended for working with the young, relatively inexperienced actors in this movie.  He had to work hard to get the desired results.  By all accounts, he succeeded.