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Title: Antwone Fisher |
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Release Date: 2002 |
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Nationality and Language: |
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Running time: 115 minutes |
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Distributor and Production Company: Fox Searchlight Pictures |
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Director; Writer: Denzel Washington |
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Producer: Randa Haines, Todd Black, Denzel Washington |
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Cast: Derek Luke, Denzel Washington, Joy Bryant |
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Technical: Panavision |
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Review: This independently financed and large-looking film is Denzel Washington’s debut as a director. What matters to me, though, is the concept: the story of a now accomplished writer Antwone Fisher, how be lifted himself out of poverty and neglect during military (Naval) service, especially with the interaction with Naval psychiatrist Jerome Davenport (Denzel Washington). In other words, an unlikely artist, still young, gets to tell his story in a movie. The story attempts to layer itself with a feedback effect upon Jerome, and this could have been better developed. But some technical things caught my eye. The screenwriting
captured the gutter talk of enlisted men on ship in hot bunks well. The
racial tensions were quite believable, although I never encountered much
racial tension (or homophobia) myself in my own Army service in the late 60s.
There is an episode when Antwone, still a “virgin”
is encouraged to explore his sexuality (after the usual “faggot” taunts),
which he soon affirms as straight in his relationship with Cheryl (Joy
Bryant) who will help Antwone gumshoe his original
neglecting family and mother. The film moves from a temptation to explore the
intimate tensions in military sociology (“don’t ask, don’t tell”) back to
family drama. The location scenes around
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