Fresh (1994)

Directed by Boaz Yakin. Starring Sean Nelson, Giancarlo Esposito, Samuel L. Jackson, Luis Lantigua, Jean-Claude La Marre, Ron Brice, Anthony Thomas, N’Bushe Wright, Yul Vasquez, José Zúñiga, Cheryl Freeman, Elizabeth Rodriguez, Victor Gonazalez. [R]

An early-90s inner city drama of a different stripe: when twelve-year-old Fresh (Nelson) isn’t showing up late to school, daydreaming about girls at recess, and playing chess at Washington Square Park, he’s hitting the streets and acting as a drug courier and dealer. But he’s no wide-eyed innocent, confused and overwhelmed but ultimately trying to do the right thing—circumstances and hard lessons have forced him into a state of survival that drives him to chilling ambivalence while playing an even more dangerous “game.” The way the plot screws put everything into place in the second half is a little dispiriting after the harrowing spontaneity of the early chapters, and the chess metaphor is hammered home a little too hard (as if this aspect of the boy’s life was created just for the sake of strategic link—it is the most idiosyncratic part of his day-to-day existence, after all). But debuting writer/director Yakin demonstrates cold street knowledge and a gift for visual dynamism in its representation of narrowed options and understanding within the social stratum, with hardly any of the swagger, gratuitousness, and moral high ground clichés of other “‘hood films.” Soundtrack features a handful of incidental hip hop tracks, but primarily employs searing original compositions from Stewart Copeland (of The Police fame). Co-produced by Lawrence Bender, who also cameos as one of Fresh’s customers.

74/100