Monday, August 30, 2010

The Movie Fresh Directed By Boaz Yakin

By Jewel Best

Writer director Boaz Yakin has had an interesting career in Hollywood. He's always been, primarily, a write for hire. He has had very few personal projects, mainly sticking to studio work like Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights. Most of his work is... Let's be honest, mediocre and forgettable. It's not his fault, it's just that these are the dull projects they give him to work with. So what is one of his movies doing on a review labeled "must see movie downloads"?

Well, before making Fresh, he went into a brief exile, stating that he would not return to film making until he had something to say. And... He lived up to that promise. Fresh is a powerful statement.

The film follows a young boy working as a drug mule for various mid-level dealers around the city. He makes anywhere from twenty to fifty bucks a run, and he's been storing that money in a coffee can by the railroad tracks. The money really adds up when you save it, and Fresh is saving it. For what? We won't say. Save to say that the way the movie plays out is really something.

Fresh spends one afternoon a week learning to play chess from his father, who is estranged from the rest of the family. These scenes are something like the Greek chorus scenes of the film, with Fresh reflecting on what's been happening and contemplating his next move.

Think of it as Fistful of Dollars set in the ghetto. When a girl Fresh has a crush on, as well as a childhood friend, are murdered in a random shooting by one of the drug dealers he works for, Fresh hatches a plan to take revenge on all of the pushers and scumbags he deals with on a daily basis, freeing himself and his family from the clutches of the drug dealers.

Fresh's scheme to take the badguys down is really incredible, serving as a fascinating parallel to the chess games he plays with his father. The master stroke of his plan is that none of his opponents suspect him of a thing, as he is, after all, just a kid. He essentially manages to play dumb and innocent, while in fact outsmarting everyone around him.

The tightrope he walks to work the scheme is suspenseful, dangerous, frightening, knowing that at any moment, they could catch on to him and put him under the ground.

It's a rare film that works this well with such touchy subject material. The film takes a child of ten years old and puts him into a Fistful of Dollars/Yojimbo style plot, scheming and plotting his way to victory over deadly, menacing criminals. It's incredible how delicate an operation this is, to make the movie exciting and suspenseful without selling short the reality and truth of the subject matter of real life street violence. - 40728

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