Antwone to miss (From Western Telegraph)

Antwone to miss

Antwone Fisher Director: Denzel Washington. Starring: Derek Luke, Denzel Washington, Joy Bryant, Salli Richardson. Cert. 15, 120 mins

In film terms, this week is officially the week before The Matrix: Reloaded comes out on general release.

Perhaps that is why this week there are a number of films of average quality or minority interest. Perhaps the studios and distributors recognise that while these films don't deserve plenty of time to stand alone at the top of the box office chart, they could do with some daylight in the pre-Matrix hype. There's also the chance that if they hang on a week or two, they might get some help from the people who can't be bothered to queue for The Matrix or who stumble into the wrong cinema.

None of this week's films blew me away, but I picked Antwone Fisher first because I thought it would be the best. It isn't. It's based on the true story of Antwone Fisher who also wrote a book about his life called Finding Fish.

It's heart-wrenching stuff about a young black American sailor and his terrible childhood and the abuse he suffered from all angles. Having reached the Navy he is prone to violent outbursts that confuse his peers and superiors. Luckily the Navy's own shrink is on hand with a military issue couch on which Antwone (I can only assume his mother couldn't spell Antoine) can rest his head and let it all out. It turns out his history and his current romantic interests are leading to his rage, which is explained as well by me now as it is in the film. The shrink, meanwhile, has romantic problems of his own and ends up using his friendship with Fisher to sort his own head out. BORED!

Derek Luke plays Fisher extremely well while the shrink is of course played by Denzel Washington, also making his directorial debut here. As an actor this is a walk in the park for Washington. As a director he focuses on the romance and adequately, but without real originality, he tells us the story.

This kind of film, which surely only gets made in America with Oscars in mind, is extremely difficult to do. Or rather, it's extremely difficult to do extremely well and if it isn't done extremely well, it's really not worth doing at all.

If there's nothing really exciting or different about your main characters to make it more interesting (as in Good Will Hunting) it's just another sad story I don't want to hear thank you, despite my great sympathy and respect for whoever's true story it may be.

I also think that if you're going to show us a psychiatrist-patient relationship the characters and narrative have to be developed impeccably and in detail. The wide brush strokes in Antwone Fisher left me feeling little emotion after an otherwise well-made movie. VAUGHAN SIVELL