Finding Forrester [DVD] [2001]

Quite simply it's a wonder. Sean Connery turns in another seemingly effortless performance. (I'm biased, as I'm from Edinburgh, but I think it's the best thing he's done since "The Man Who Would be King".) Rob Brown (as Jamal) isn't dwarfed by Connery's performance and turns in something eyecatching himself. F Murray Abraham, always worth watching, gives us plenty to dislike as Jamal's snobbish teacher. Anna Paquin fared well as Jamal's school friend - but this could have been expanded on a bit more.

However, don't just read this review. Watch the film. You won't regret it.

William Forrester is a writer who, battling his own inner demons, has remained reclusive after writing a Pulitzer Prize winning novel some forty odd years earlier. Living alone in a changing neighborhood in the Bronx, he makes the acquaintance of Kamal, an intellectually gifted inner city kid, who plays street basketball, loves to write, and does both well.

A mentoring relationship springs between the two. Under Forrester's secret tutorship, Kamal blossoms. When Kamal's scholastic test scores come to the attention of a local prep school, school officials offer him a scholarship to attend and, if he chooses to do so, play basketball on the school team. The school also turns out to be William Forrester's alma mater, where he is revered and his prize winning novel is required reading.

There, Kamal encounters rank racism, all the more insidious because it is covert. F. Murray Abraham plays a teacher who is very similar to the character, Salieri, whom Abraham portrayed in the film "Amadeus". A failed writer who became a teacher, Abraham oozes racism as he contrives to destroy Kamal whom he accuses of plagiarism, as he clearly believes him to be just another inner city, black basketball player who is incapable of anything more. He cannot seem to fathom that this kid could possibly write as well as he does, because he has Kamal stereotyped.

Yet, Kamal is actually all that he purports to be, a gifted writer who just also happens to play basketball. Truly scholarly, he shows up his teacher in class, only to further exacerbate his enmity. This teacher's dislike and covert racism manifests itself in the exclusion of Kamal's entry in the prestigious writing competition sponsored by the prep school. This situation comes to a head when the teacher's racism is exposed for what it is in a stunning, surprising climax.

Kamal, however, is not the only one to have a moment of redemption in the movie. Forrester, too, has that moment as he comes to grips with his past, the past that made him shut the world out for so long. It is his friendship with Kamal that illuminates his return to the very world from which he had withdrawn long ago.

This film is about a friendship that is borne out of a shared passion. It is about the old nurturing the young. It is about passing the baton from one generation to the next. It is a film the transcends age and race. It is a film for everyone.

The celebrated F. Murray Abraham did a creditable job portraying the nemesis of the central character Jamal played by, who years ago would have been called a "natural actor," Rob Brown. By now, most people reading this must known the plot: basketball superstar ghetto teenager is discovered to be a literary genius who struggles with his identity while being given the chance to succeed on a scholarship at a prestigious private high school.

The budding teen writer meets a hermit novelist buried away in his 'hood, and the two become friends and literary soul mates. I liked the story and the acting for the most part. Connery and Brown were a marvelous team. However, much as I like Abraham as an actor it seemed to me he played the personality of his villain (Jamal's English composition teacher who tries to get him expelled by proving the kid's brilliant essays were all plagiarized writing) a bit too much like Salieri in AMADEUS. Maybe, had I not seen the Mozart movie this would not have irritated me so much. Nevertheless, I can't hold that against the movie.

Uplifting, realistic fantasies, avoiding stereotypes and not challenging common sense have become such a rarity these days that five stars is a fair rating for this thoroughly enjoyable movie. I'll bet teenagers like it too.