MOVIES Cry Freedom: A Flawed Gem From A Troubled Land

Cry Freedom, the new film from Richard Attenborough, the director of Gandhi, is really two movies. One of them is an interesting, sometimes stirring account of the struggle of Stephen Biko, the South African anti-apartheid activist who died in 1977, apparently after being beaten by security police employed by that country’s white government, The other movie, dragged-out and not as interesting, is the story of how Donald Woods, the South African newspaper editor and Biko ally, escaped from the country after the government put him under house arrest.

The first movie features a solid, understated performance by Denzel Washington (Dr. Phillip Chandler on television’s “St. Elsewhere”) as Biko, a man determined “to kill the idea that one kind of man is superior to another kind of man.” The movie really gets a jolt of energy whenever Washington is on the screen. You get an idea of how accomplished he was in front of crowds (Biko was a leader of South Africa’s Black Consciousness movement) as well as in one-on-one situations. When Woods, who initially thinks South African blacks are being too militant, wonders aloud what Biko would be like if their situations were reversed, Biko smiles and says, “It’s a charming idea.”

And when a government prosecutor pesters Biko about the movement’s use of the word “black,” Biko responds: “Why call yourselves white? You people are more pink than white.” The message is delivered in an even-tempered way. It doesn’t sound flip, or smart-alecky, just well reasoned. There’s personality and passion here; you listen to the slivers of speeches and courtroom exchanges, watch the security police harassing Biko, and wonder why it’s taken so long for someone to make a movie about the heroic fight against the appallingly repressive government in South Africa.

For ninety minutes Cry Freedom is effective, forceful storytelling; it’s hard to imagine an audience not being hooked by it. But in the next hour, Attenborough seems perversely intent on letting a lot of the dramatic air out of his film. His assumption seems to be that Woods (played by Kevin Kline) is as inherently compelling as Biko, and that assumption turns out to be quite wrong.

Kline has been an intense and intelligent presence before-in The Big Chill and Sophie’s Choice-but not here. In Cry Freedom, in fact, his Woods sometimes seems a bit thick. In the early part of the movie he seems to have so little idea of how blacks in his country live that it’s hard to believe he enjoys a reputation as an intelligent, thoughtful, and well-spoken newspaper editor. Kline’s Woods is so quiet, almost withdrawn, that he seems curiously unaffected by many of the injustices he sees. On the page (John Briley’s screenplay is based on two books by Woods), this may come across as reticence with a purpose-Woods may not want to tip his hand too soon, fearing trouble before he can accomplish anything. Onscreen, though, it looks like sluggishness.

Most of the last hour of the movie is devoted to Woods’s efforts to get himself and his family out of South Africa, so that he can publish his book about Biko. There are some domestic squabbles about Woods’s ego. “I know you,” his wife says during one argument. “You’re willing to tear our lives apart Just to see your name on a book cover.”

“This is what I can do,” he says in his defense.

After the government steps up its war against the Woods family, though (constant surveillance, bugging of home and phone), they decide that fleeing is the only answer. But the getaway is so slowly paced that you find yourself looking at your watch and asking how much longer the movie will run.

Attenborough has ambition, purpose, and a laudable commitment, amply demonstrated in Gandhi, to telling important stories. What he needs here is someone to say enough already.



Cross My Heart is a movie about adult dating. It’s also an adult movie about dating. A funny, smart, well-crafted adult movie about adult dating. It’s a relatively quiet movie, too. You have to listen, (A lot of this movie seems so close to everyday, or every night, life, that you may feel like you’re eavesdropping.) The daters involved are Martin Short as David and Annette O’Toole as Kathy. He’s just lost his job because he wouldn’t laugh at a client’s stupid jokes. She has a child from a previous marriage. Do they tell each other about this stuff? This being only their third date, of course not. As David explains late in the movie, “Daters are liars.”

In Cross My Heart, written by Gail lurent and director Armyan Bernstein, the daters, David and Kathy, are particularly interesting and sympathetic liars.

The date starts out with what seem to be harmless, make-a-good-first-impression evasions. David has a crummy car, so he has borrowed a nicer one from a friend. Kathy doesn’t want him to know she has a child- not yet, not on this early encounter-so she meets him on the front porch of her bungalow. Hew, she asks her sister, can she casually apprise him of the fact that she’s a single mother? Does she say: “Pass the salt, and, by the way, would you like to see a video of me in labor?”

But almost immediately, this fragile fabric starts to tear. The borrowed car is stolen from the restaurant parking lot. And for Kathy, the hours are ticking away too quickly; at some point she’s going to have to make an excuse to go home and relieve her sister of babysitting duty. But they have a few hours before the deadline, which they spend at his apartment (again, borrowed from a friend), telling lies, taking off their clothes, telling more lies. They end up having to tell the truth, but not before they’ve played some dating games.

Investigating the apartment, Kathy sends an intricate model-plane mobile crashing to the floor. “That’s okay,” David says, trying to keep the mood going. “It’s just a… thing. I was gonna break it myself over the weekend.”

After David tries to chase her into the bedroom, Kathy decides they need to talk a little more. She happens to have one of those Cosmo-Glamour-Mademoiselle dating quizzes and asks him how many women he’s slept with.

“Fifty-four,” he says, a question mark hanging a beat after this declaration. She says that’s a lot. He asks if eleven would be better. Next it’s his turn. “Have you ever had sex with a corpse?” he asks. “Because if you had, I’d have to say you were out of here.”

These are funny, clever people. They know what they’re supposed to do and say on an occasion such as this. But they’re also vulnerable, a little desperate, so their joking before and during bed has an undercurrent of sadness; they want so much to be liked that they pretend to a sophistication, a smooth-operator status, that neither of them has. “It was wonderful,” he says after offhandedly telling her to stop licking his ear, “but I just hated it.”

Short and O’Toole are terrific at portraying the hesitations and hopes, the daring and defensiveness of daters who have been on more than enough dates. Short’s roles in the leaden Three Amigos and the mussy Inner-space called on his remarkable talent for physical schtick, the dancing-prancing business of his that’s always a stitch, He’s able to do a bit of that in Cross My Hearl, too- there’s a very funny moment involving underwear, a wine bottle, and the kitchen-but for most of the movie he displays the winning ways of a character best described as Regular American Guy. O Toole is one of the most likable of American actresses; her smoky-voiced Kathy is sometimes sweet, sometimes strong, always savvier than she lets on. David and Kathy are both so endearing here that you know they belong together. They know it too. They just have to pass a peculiar, punishing test-dating-before they can take the dangerous, exhilarating step of being honest with each other.



Five Corners has many affecting moments, but much of their impact is lost or obscured due to the zig-zagging, disconcerting structure of the film..

Set in the Bronx in 1964-call it East Coast Graffiti with some Mean Streets twists-the movie is largely a coming-of-age drama with some excellent black-comedy touches. Then, suddenly, a psychopathic thug tosses his addled mother out the window, or a policeman is trapped in a telephone booth and run over. The mood goes from deadpan to, well, death, and the transitions here are not deft ones.

Five Corners follows a few days in the lives of four characters-Linda (played by Jodie Foster), who works at her father’s pet store; Harry (Tim Robbins), whose policeman father was recently murdered and who now wants to join the civil rights movement; James (Todd Graff), Linda’s nervous, glib boyfriend; and Heinz (John Turturro), the bullying black cloud of the piece.

When Heinz made trouble for Linda before, Harry-tall, strong, in control-took care of him for her. Now that Heinz is out of prison, though, Harry can’t be relied upon for any pounding or pummeling. “Ain’t you heard?” James tells Linda as she scoops a goldfish into a plastic bag. “Harry’s nonviolent now.”

Harry’s message of love is lost on Heinz, who is determined to make Linda his girlfriend, by force if necessary. His pursuit and its outcome are competently handled if predictable. But John Patrick Stanley’s script is crowded with funny, moving events and memorable characters.

There are kids who, for thrills, ride on the tops of elevator cars. And there are the deli owners who, in even, conversational tones, discuss the violent death of a neighborhood resident. “Such a cheerful woman,” one says.

“She had a screw loose,” says the other.

“Still…,” says the First man.

Director Tony Bill (who directed the fine My Bodyguard in 1980) gets impressive performances from his talented actors, but they can’t give the movie the consistency it needs to be really absorbing. Watching Five Corners is a little like taking one of those elevator-roof rides; sometimes it’s hard to figure out just which floor you’re on.