The Hurricane Carter movie, released in 1999 and directed by Norman Jewison, tells the true story of Rubin "Hurricane" Carter, a middleweight boxer who was wrongfully convicted of triple murder in 1966 and spent almost 20 years in prison before being released. The film focuses on Carter's battle for justice and his eventual exoneration, as well as the impact his case had on the broader issues of racism and the criminal justice system.
The movie opens with a brief overview of Carter's boxing career and his rise to fame as a contender for the middleweight title. However, things take a turn when Carter is arrested and charged with the murders of three white people in a New Jersey bar. Despite a lack of physical evidence linking him to the crime and numerous inconsistencies in the prosecution's case, Carter is convicted and sentenced to three consecutive life terms in prison.
As the years pass, Carter becomes a cause célèbre, with many people rallying to his defense and calling for a new trial. One of these supporters is Lesra Martin, a young African American man from Brooklyn who becomes inspired by Carter's story and begins to investigate the case himself. With the help of a team of lawyers and activists, Martin and Carter work tirelessly to prove Carter's innocence and eventually succeed in getting his conviction overturned.
The Hurricane Carter movie is a powerful and moving portrayal of Carter's struggle for justice and the impact his case had on the larger issues of racism and the criminal justice system. Denzel Washington gives an excellent performance as Carter, capturing the boxer's fierce determination and unwavering spirit. The film also features strong supporting performances from Vicellous Shannon as Lesra Martin and Debbi Morgan as Carter's wife, Mae Thelma.
Overall, The Hurricane Carter movie is a must-see for anyone interested in the true story of Rubin Carter and the fight for justice. It is a poignant and inspiring tale of one man's perseverance in the face of overwhelming odds and a powerful reminder of the importance of standing up for what you believe in.
The Hurricane (1999): Movie & Summary
A curious fact left out of the movie is that Artis, who was Carter's co-defendant in the triple murder, has never agreed with Carter on exactly what the two were doing on that fateful night in Paterson 34 years ago. It is true that he ran away from a juvenile detention centre and joined the army, but in The Hurricane he appears to emerge from it with full honours. Carter's 1964 middleweight title match with Joey Giardello. This is strong stuff, and I was amazed, after feeling some impatience in the earlier reaches of the film, to find myself so deeply absorbed in its second and third acts, until at the end I was blinking at tears. Even before the 1966 killings in the Lafayette Bar and Grill in Paterson, Carter had done enough to earn himself a life sentence. When three victims, specifically the club's bartender and a male and a female customer, were shot to death in a bar in Paterson, New Jersey, Carter and his friend John Artis, driving home from another club in Paterson, were stopped and interrogated by the police. The National Guard was called out to quell the riots in the cities.
Hurricane
They discovered a consistent pattern of deception, suppression of evidence and mishandling of the case by the Paterson police. The taking of such license, of course, adds an extra jolt of drama. In my notes I wrote: "If this is going to be the story of a persecuting cop, we need to know him as more than simply the instrument of evil"--as a human being rather than a plot convenience. A title card before the film admits that some characters have been composited or invented, and some incidents fictionalised. And when he drank he became abusive. You will see that both on Cal Deal's site and in my writings on the subject below.
Rubin 'Hurricane' Carter
These characters are fiction, but make this movie more dramatic. However, this is the aspect of the film that becomes overly sentimental. These brutal sequences are reminiscent of Martin Scorsese's Raging Bull. But many of the obituary writers accepted it as true and repeated the scenes as fact, without giving the attribution that journalists are supposed to provide. At his first trial, Carter produced witness after witness who testified he was somewhere else at the time of the killing.
The Hurricane (1999 film)
The movie skips over these events, other than to state falsely that the second trial was before an all-white jury. Tedeschis, who had a local construction business, gave Carter a job and began managing him to a professional career. Carter was, by his own account, flamboyant, arrogant and hostile. During the next nine years Carter's defense team, aided by the Canadians, worked to uncover previously unknown evidence. . In the months immediately after it, she says, she was pressured by Carter's supporters.
