Author: Unknown
•2:22 PM
By Terry Hawkins

Boaz Yakin isn't the most well known names in film. He's really something of a writer-for-hire for the most part. The vast majority of his films have been studio projects where he was simply brought on board to bring some studio's idea of a marketable project to life. He's made very few movies that have been... More personal, you might say. Fresh, however, is his crowning achievement, and a must see movie downloads for your queue.

This movie came after Boaz Yakin's self imposed exile. At a certain point, he became disillusioned with the film industry and declared that he would be taking a hiatus from writing, at least until he felt he had something important to say. The result was a movie that truly does make a powerful statement.

The movie is named for the titular hero, Fresh, a young boy who works as a drug mule for various dealers around town. Two of which are at war with one another. So how does he keep his head above water when he would certainly be killed if one boss found out about the other? Well the twenty to fifty dollars he makes per run, he hides it in a coffee can by the railroad tracks and... After a couple years of running drugs every day for twenty to fifty bucks a run... That adds up, and the things you can do with that money if you're smart...

Fresh spends each weekend playing chess with his father, an alcoholic genius who's become estranged from the family. The chess serves as a metaphor for the scheme Fresh is hatching, as well as a sort of Greek chorus scene for the audience and for Fresh himself.

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 movie is, at times, brutally and shockingly violent. This is necessary to drive home the reality of Fresh's situation. He's not in a good place in life, his bosses menace him and threaten him with death at every turn, and he walks a tightrope in order to keep himself alive while at the same time taking down the people who torment him and his friends and family.

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.

About the Author:

|
This entry was posted on 2:22 PM and is filed under . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

0 nhận xét: