Fresh

Rating:
Summary: A masterpiece in urban film
Review: "Fresh" has to be the most fascinating urban movie ever made. In the past few years, a number of excellent urban dramas have been made, from "Do the Right Thing" to "Boyz N The Hood" to "Menace II Society." "Fresh" is better than all of these. Fresh is the nickname of a smart, cool kid who uses his brain to find a way out of his violence and drug infested neighborhood. His chess like strategies and cool demeanor help him succeed. The ending of the movie has to be the most powerful ending in recent years (save the ending to "Schindler's List"). See this film. END

Rating:
Summary: Wow!
Review: A very powerful film, tightly plotted, well-written and wonderfully acted. Fresh's chess games with his father, and the advice he receives therein, brilliantly foreshadow the moves he will later make in a real-life game of chess against the powerful drug dealers who control his neighborhood. This one kept me guessing all the way to the end and is doubly impressive because it presents a plausible scenario in which a very intelligent twelve-year-old boy might overcome the odds against him. The last shot, a picture of Fresh's face, is an example of a perfect final image because it reveals an aspect of character that I had not seen before (although I always knew it was there).

Rating:
Summary: Amazing
Review: After I saw this movie, I was unable to stop thinking about it. It is absolutely stunning. Masterfully written and directed by Boaz Yakin, and a near perfect performance by Sean Nelson. The movie's plot twists unfold before you even realize what's happening... and by the time you do, you're hooked. Chess as a metaphor for life works better in this movie than the corny sentimentality of "Searching for Bobby Fischer". Samuel L. Jackson also gives a superb supporting performance as Fresh's father. For those who characterize the events in the film as overly sensational or gratuitous (dog scene, etc.), don't understand what's really going on.

Rating:
Summary: Amazing
Review: After seeing this movie, I was really in awe. Imagine the scenes from Traffic depicting the ghetto and then blow them up to a whole new scale. I mean this movie does it with such realism and simplicity. I really don't know how a person can remain conservative and 'darwinistic' after seeing a movie like this. Its political/social commentary is biting. Here's a kid who is smart, brilliant actually, but whose environment is consumed by poverty and despair. If you watch this movie and still think that all it takes is hard work to 'make it', what can I say, you're either naive or stupid. Watch this movie and please, take something from it.

Rating:
Summary: The best. In a class by itself.
Review: After watching Fresh, my friends and I all stood staring at the credits for 5 minutes. It was the same kind of silence that characterized watching "The Shawshank Redemption" and "Braveheart". Warning, however, the movie is not so much inspirational as it is emotionally raw. Well worth the time and tastefully done as well.

Rating:
Summary: Outstanding...
Review: Fresh has got it all figured out. This is THE best urban/gangster movie that i've ever seen. Any fan of rap or hip-hop will love this movie. It is a change of pace from the typical action-packed movies that were designed around a soundtrack. This movie is as intelligent as a game of chess.

Rating:
Summary: A film that troubles the soul and breaks your heart
Review: Fresh is a film that troubles the soul and breaks your heart. This violent coming of age tale tells the story of Michael a.k.a. Fresh, a 12-year-old drug dealer who lives in a neighborhood without any real hope, and his struggle to keep himself alive. In a world where paranoia, guns and drugs are a way of life, it is amazing that Fresh not only survives but also comes out on top of the game. Be warned though, you won't like this boy. He does things that can only be described as monstrous but you will understand why he commits the sins that he does. One cannot remain an innocent, a child, and still exist in his reality. Sean Nelson, as Michael/Fresh, gives a brilliant performance that remains understated yet powerful. The entire experience is worthwhile just to see this child at work. Fresh is low budget independent film but boasts a couple of well-known actors such as acclaimed performer, Samuel L. Jackson. Jackson gives a decent, if unmemorable performance, as the absentee alcoholic father who disperses advice on life while using the chessboard as a metaphor. Chess is a recurrent theme of the film and for those who love the game, it will add another layer of symbolic meaning to story.
However, not everything with this film is happiness and roses. The audio/music track is terrible and disrupts the dialogue. The middle of the film drags the action down and the lack of budget shows in many of the interior scenes. On occasion, the director oversells his message and in other places, I was left wondering why a scene was occurring (dog-shooting). Since this was Boaz Yakin's (Return of the Titans) first directing attempt, I can understand where the film's shortcomings are coming from but it still doesn't excuse it. Overall, the movie gets a passing grade and I would recommend it for rental. A couple of warnings though-- it has crude language, violence, and drugs are prevalent in almost every aspect of the film..

Rating:
Summary: Anyone for chess...
Review: Fresh is a stark, somewhat sensational metaphor-movie about street life. The main character, Fresh, is a 12-year-old kid with a job running drugs for various thugs. He learns tact and tactic through weekly chess matches with his alcoholic, supposed-to-be absent father. He takes what he learns and applies it toward getting a better life for himself and his wayward sister. Played by Sean Nelson, Fresh is a kid so precocious as to make Haley Joel Osment look childish, and then some. There really is no comparison for this movie, a film as mature as its young star.

Rating:
Summary: A LESSON FOR ALL
Review: Fresh is more than just another film about urban decay and the harsh realities of New York street life. It's a story that is as real as anything you've seen on the nightly news. It's the story that doesn't make it to the Sunday paper. Depending on who reads this review and where there from, Fresh truly hits close to home. Brooklyn NY is the setting and Fresh played by Sean Nelson is "the little man running the streets" Although younger than any main character in a film that covers the topic of drugs, He is a lot mature and focused than many of the sterotyped characters that Hollywood loves to portray black youths as. Working as a runner for two notorious drug dealers, Fresh finds himself caught in a deadly game of chess. It's a story that is rich with raw power and director Boaz Yakin gives it to the audience without the sugar frosting. With powewrful performances by Giancarlo Esposito, Samuel L. Jackson, and N, Bush Wright, Fresh brings you face to face with a reality that many parents of todays youth hope is just all blown out of perportion. So go cop it Aiight.

Rating:
Summary: "Fresh". Perhaps the greatest movie of the last decade.
Review: I didn't expect to like this movie.
I've seen "Clockers" and "Boyz In the Hood" etc...
I've seen a lot of the Spike Lee "joints".
Now I've seen "Fresh".
I will inevitably rave over it, but the point is that the movie is a true rarity.
The directing and scene editing was seemless. The coverage of the culture was deep, thorough and accurate.
The plot... the plot depicts a twelvish chess player who has been told of his greatest negative influence by his neighbors and the courts; his father who contributes not to society.
The great chess teacher rides his son in forbidden afternoons in the park in an attempt to distill ever better stategy in his game, but the boy is thinking of chess in terms of its implications to reality and designs a living chess-like strategy in his life that is desperate and finely honed.
A great artist wrote this film. A great director executed a fine screenplay.
There is nothing extraneous about this film.
Every scene is essential and delivered purely. There is no jive, editorializing, propagandanizing theme behind it. It is simply the real deal and a brilliant young mind surviving in his tough life by using every single one of the tools in his reach.
Like his teacher/father taught him about chess, he wastes not a single move in his life of depraived circumstances of treachery, illicit people and violence.
In the end it dawned on me the awesome tradegy of the role that the father was left to play in the boy's life vs. the fact that he was the only asset the boy had ever has access to.
As the movie closes you see the boy's first tears and its due to the pervasive lie and fraud that has been perpetrated on him and his world. But the tears are an involuntary response to his father's character. Even in a moment of more of the same callous criticism of him he sees in his father the constant that has always been lacking everywhere.
The tragedy is that it is far too late. The world has indelibly encroached itself and the boy will wear his cold, manly armor till death.
His father's criticism in boyhood must have seemed as harsh as the rest of the world. As though to contradict all the slander toward the father from earliest memory the man becomes a twisted beacon of decency despite the brown paper bag in his hand in the park where the chessplayers go.
I don't review movies. But I just watched this movie at 3am last night by accident. I was just checking the weather before falling into bed. But at noon with my wife today I was moved again and we watched in sympathy, anger and another emotion; I understood for the first time.
My praise to the director, Boaz Yakim.
As soon as I'm done writing this, I intend to find every film he's ever done and order them.
Other movies I like are "JFK", "What's Eating Gilbert Grape", "White Sands", "Hoffa", "The Recruit", "The Rounders" and "Apocalypse Now" and "Glengary Glen-Ross".

I hope these comments encourage someone to see the movie and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
Oh... the acting is of true quality.
Brent Fuller.