Redeemer (2002) Reviews

• Writer helps rehabilitated convict regain his freedom

  Ewi2002-06-23

  A writer comes to teach a creative writing class in a prison hoping to find a story for his next best seller. Instead, he finds a fluent ex black panther that has been serving a long time, 20 years since a man was accidentally shot dead during a break in. In order to help the convict out of jail, the writer must first help the victim's sister set herself free from the metaphorical prison she's been locking herself in for the last 20 years. The movie is better than the average American TV drama.

• Not much meat....full of cliches

  TimeForLime2003-07-23

  ** MILD SPOILERS *** Here is a film that parallels Denzel Washington's 1999 THE HURRICANE. But with some important differences. The prisoner is a nobody, not a once-celebrated fighter. The rescuer, rather than being a precocious schoolboy, is an adult, a writer who has turned to teaching fiction to pick up some extra dollars, and to try to put his life together. And the "enemy, or hardship, to be overcome" is not just "the system", but all the people and circumstances that conspired to put the prisoner in jail some 20 years earlier. Unraveling those people and circumstances constitutes the heart of the story. The characterization is uneven. Perhaps the only steady, well-defined person is the dysfunctionally bitter sister of a murder victim from a bungled robbery shown at the film's outset. The dialog is pretty good, but the plot development relies on stringing together dozens of cliches from other prison films, rescue films, and films showing teachers working with at-first reluctant classes, such as THE PRINCIPAL (1987), SISTER ACT (1992) DANGEROUS MINDS (1995), THE SUBSTITUTE (1996), etc. Matthew Modine (BIRDY-1984, MEMPHIS BELLE-1990) saves the day, recognizing the limitations of his material, and forming a nice union with his co-star Obba Babatunde (HOW HIGH-2001). Babatunde, in turn, gives an excellent turn as a burned out Black Panther who is still mistrustful of anyone who appears to be too white, too helpful, too soon. Breaks for commercials are painfully evident. What appeared to me as a loose end was the sub-text of Modine's character trying to sell himself back to his ex-girlfriend. "I need you to structure me," he says. "No," she says, "you need to do it yourself." But was there something to come after that? This is a good film to supplement a larger film like 12 ANGRY MEN (1957, 1997). People who claim too glibly that "the trial determines guilt and innocence" may be speaking correctly from a de jure point of view, but from a human standpoint, they may be very mistaken. One reason is because of the enormous control that the Police have over evidence. Another is the huge control that the District Attorneys have over the Police. DNA testing, which is setting a great many incarcerated prisoners free, is only one example of how trial outcomes may be challenged years after a prisoner is put behind bars. This film gives another example.