File “Crown Heights” under the category of terrific films that got buried in the rush of late summer/early fall releases. Lakeith Stanfield, one of the best young actors working today, stars in this prison drama based on the true story of a man wrongfully convicted of murder who had to fight for decades to receive his freedom, and justice.
He plays Colin Warner, a car thief and low-level criminal who gets picked up in connection with a shooting. Not only was he not even there when it happened, he didn’t know the victim or the real assailant. But through a massive miscarriage of the law, he finds himself sentenced to a long prison term at age 18, while the actual shooter serves minimal time because he was still 17.
Writer/director Matt Ruskin follows Colin for decades as he tries to have the conviction reversed, as various lawyers of various levels of commitment come and go. Stanfield gives a masterful turn as a meek kid who gradually grows up into adulthood and then middle age, gaining strength and resolve.
I also really admired Nnamdi Asomugha as Carl King, Colin’s one friend on the outside who doesn’t give up on his case, even as his devotion extracts sacrifices in his own personal life. Natalie Paul plays Antoinette, who had a teen flirtation with Colin that unexpectedly is rekindled while he is in prison.
It’s easy to miss small, superlative films during the course of a year. But “Crown Heights” is a powerful, gripping drama about a flawed but innocent man striving to preserve his own life.
Alas, this film is being released on video without any bonus features.
Lakeith Stanfield is one of the brightest lights among young actors in Hollywood today. I remember being blown away by his feature film debut, “Short Term 12,” and he’s acquitted himself well in supporting roles since then in “Miles Ahead,” “Straight Outta Compton,” “Selma” and more.
Now he gets his chance at a starring role in “Crown Heights,” playing a man wrongfully convicted for a murder he didn’t commit. Colin Warner eventually won his freedom, and if there’s any justice in the cinematic world then Stanfield’s portrayal of him will be remembered during the looming awards season.
It’s a fully fleshed-out performance as a wronged man who literally found himself picked up off the street at random. Stanfield takes the character from age 18 to about 40, and we watch him grow from a docile kid bewildered by what’s happening to him to an embittered but proud man who righteously refuses to express remorse for something he didn’t do.
As a result, Colin’s prison sentence stretches past 20 years, as the wheels of the justice system grind at an achingly slow pace. Meanwhile, the teen who actually committed the murder (Anthony Gibson) is let out after just a few years because he was a minor when he committed the crime.
It’s the sort of bracing filmmaking that leaves you aching with anger, but also filled with admiration at how people can endure great injustice.
Written and directed by Matt Ruskin, “Crown Heights” is careful not to depict Colin as a choir boy. Indeed, the early part of the film prior to his arrest shows him stealing a car in his Brooklyn neighborhood, a multicultural district where many people are foreign-born like himself, originally hailing from Trinidad. While good-hearted in his nature, he’s not above inflicting harm on a fellow immigrant if it puts a few bucks in his pocket.
But when he’s arrested and police demand he confess to a shooting, Colin balks. Not only was he not involved, he doesn’t even know the boy who was killed or the murderer. It’s as if the investigation began and ended with picking a random name and face out of a book of mugshots.
Denied bail, Colin waits nearly two years for his trial, feeling abandoned by his friends and family. Only Carl King (a superlative Nnamdi Asomugha), his best friend, continues the fight on his behalf.
Convicted on the barest of evidence -- the prime witness actually admits on the stand that he lied about Colin’s involvement -- he begins a decades-long journey to reclaim his good name and freedom.
You’d call it a comedy of errors, except it’s not funny and the mistakes were willful ones by law enforcement and prosecutors who were bent on getting a conviction, no matter what.
Natalie Paul plays Antoinette, a teen love interest who learns years later of his incarceration, and signs on to the team fighting for his exoneration. Bill Camp plays William Robedee, the lone wolf attorney who eventually agreed to take Colin’s case.
While race is never overtly presented as the reason for Colin’s wrongful conviction, the issue lingers in the background of every scene. For instance, the white prison guard who takes a special interest in berating the timid young man, cutting off his phone call to his grandmother on her birthday after a single minute, and so on. This leads to Colin being labeled a problem inmate, expanding his initial sentence of 15 years.
A powerful and moving film experience, “Crown Heights” is a resounding lesson that our criminal justice structure, which purports to rest on a bedrock of certitude, is too often a hollow system in which the weak are sucked into a pit of despair.
Here is one of the year’s finest performances in one of the year’s best films.
You go to see a movie like "Southpaw" for the gritty performances and slam-bang boxing scenes. From a story standpoint it's a pretty generic boxing plot, with our scrappy champion rising and falling, falling and rising, from the mat and metaphorically.
The screenplay by Kurt Sutter is original only on a technicality, liberally cribbing its plot from the "Rocky" movies and other boxing flicks. (He reputedly wrote the script with Eminem in mind, basing it loosely on the rapper/sometime actor's life story. Em doesn't appear, though he supplies a couple of punchy songs.)
Jake Gyllenhaal plays the protagonist with the not-at-all-subtle name of Billy Hope, who rose from the hard streets of New York City through dint of hard work and an unmatched ferocity in the ring, an unwanted orphan who became light heavyweight champion.
Then through a succession of senseless disaster and self-destructive behavior, Billy loses it all, including custody of his 10-year-old daughter, Leila (Oona Laurence). He's forced to reinvent himself as a fighter and as a man, starting from the bottom again and earning his way back to glory and redemption.
This is Boxing Movies 101 stuff. Check that; it's actually 201. Boxing 101 is "Rocky" and "Rocky II," where an unknown pug rises to the championship. "Southpaw" is "Rocky III" and "IV" -- they're virtually interchangeable, really -- where the reigning champ takes things for granted, gets knocked down a peg or seven, and has to scrap back to former heights.
There literally isn't a single surprise along the way, including the inevitable final match. You've got the familiar nemeses along the way, including a black-hearted young boxer (Miguel Gomez) who was responsible for Billy's fall, and the mercenary boxing promoter/manager (Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson), who tells Billy they're family but saves his deepest love for the hottest prospect.
It's an interesting role for Gyllenhaal, who jumped off the traditional Hollywood star train a few years back to pursue smaller, more personal projects like "Nightcrawler" and the excellent "End of Watch." He's fought against his blue-eyed prettiness during this time, and in "Southpaw" he really works the scarred, stumblebum angle, muttering his lines and cocking his one good eye.
After losing a bunch of weight for "Nightcrawler" he packs on the ripped muscles for this role, and director Antoine Fuqua obligingly sweeps his camera and lights across Gyllenhaal's torso to emphasize the craggy wall of his abdomen. (I'm not really sure when abs became a thing; you'd think a boxer would want a little padding there to better absorb blows.) The actor's body becomes this strange mix of revulsion and fetishized object; we linger over his spent blood and abused flesh like a latter-day Lazarus.
The fight scenes are well-choreographed and energetic, though in the commonplace failing of Hollywood boxing movies, the fighters absorb more solid blows in a single round than most pugilists encounter in a year. Billy's strategy, if you can call it that, is to let opponents wallop him until he gets furious enough to uncork his pent-up rage.
Forest Whitaker is terrific as Tick Wills, an old-school trainer who teaches kids at an inner-city gym. Billy comes to him at his bottom, after lost having his wife (Rachel McAdams) to tragedy, his daughter to social services and his fame and fortune to his own self-hating spiral. Tick is old and tough, has taken his own cuts, and retrains Billy as a defensive fighter. "Protect yourself" is his mantra, underlined by one cloudy eye.
Just as the two men begin to trust one another, the filmmakers shortcut the journey and we're back to the ring again for Billy's deliverance. A smarter, better movie would've had Billy turn down the offers of quick money and a shot at the title, realizing that when you've gone down the path of destruction you can't just back up to solve your problems.
But who wants to see a boxing movie about a boxer who doesn't want to box anymore? Me, but apparently few others.
