`Hurricane’ a big, emotional film

In Theaters

THE HURRICANE, directed by Norman Jewison, written by Armyan Bernstein and Dan Gordon. Based on “The Sixteenth Round” by Rubin Carter and “Lazarus and the Hurricane” by Sam Chaiton and Terry Swinton. Running time: 125 minutes. Rated R.

Just as New Jersey-born boxer Rubin “Hurricane” Carter was a crowd pleaser in the ring, Norman Jewison’s film based on the man’s life is a crowd pleaser in theaters.

“The Hurricane” is a big, emotional film of crushing disappointment and wounding indifference, hope won and hope lost, evil reigning while righteous indignation burns, the internal landscape ultimately triumphing over the external.

It’s one of those rare movies that works in spite of its overt contrivances and manipulations, a film whose soul seethes with outrage and defiance — and two of Jewison’s favorite topics: social and racial injustice.

It’s a flaw that Jewison, the director of “In the Heat of the Night” and “A Soldier’s Story,” finds no middle ground here, no room for characters who aren’t either purely evil or purely good (the liberties the director took in fleshing out Carter’s life are too many), and it’s a shame he doesn’t trust his story enough to steer clear of melodrama, but the good news here is how terrific “The Hurricane” is regardless of its shortcomings.

The reason it’s so good is because of Denzel Washington’s performance as Carter, a man who spent nearly 20 years in prison for a triple murder he didn’t commit only to be freed after the enormous efforts of three Canadians (played here by Liev Schreiber, John Hannah and Deborah Kara Unger). Jewison never once explores the communal relationship between these three — they might as well be dishrags up on the screen — but remarkably that oversight doesn’t harm the film.

Our focus — and Jewison’s — is on Washington, one of our best actors, who has rarely been this good; throughout the film, he wears Carter’s demons like a mask, turning the man’s deep inner turmoil and even deeper sense of pride into a showpiece for restraint that builds to a stirring climax. Grade: A-

On Video

TWIN FALLS IDAHO, directed by Michael Polish, written by Mark Polish and Michael Polish. Running time: 105 minutes. Rated R.

Who knew that a film about a hooker who falls in love with the left half of two conjoined twins would turn out to be the deeply affecting, haunting look at loneliness that is Michael Polish’s “Twin Falls Idaho”?

The film, which stars and was co-written by identical twins Michael and Mark Polish, is not what some might expect from a film about Siamese twins. This isn’t an exploitative freak show, but a movie that explores the relationships of its three principal characters as they struggle with the curveball life has thrown them. Indeed, as these three learn after their first, cursory meeting, they are connected forever.

The film opens with Penny (Michele Hicks), a prostitute who arrives at a bleak, desolate hotel to answer a call. There, she steps into the world of Blake and Francis Falls, two former sideshow attractions who are joined at the hip and share one leg.

But Francis, the weaker of the two, has a failing heart, and as the film unfolds, it not only becomes clear that Blake’s heart is beating for both, but that these twins came to this hotel to meet their estranged mother (Lesley Ann Warren), who abandoned them at birth, and then to die.

In a film that wisely never gives itself over to schmaltzy pathos — the twins’ biting wit gives the film an edge — “Twin Falls Idaho” is a examination of forced intimacy ignited with the need for solitude. It never goes for easy answers, never offers simple resolutions, because there are none.

This film is more interested in truth. Grade: A

Christopher Smith is the Bangor Daily News film critic. His reviews appear each Monday and Thursday in the NEWS, each Tuesday and Thursday on WLBZ’s “NEWS CENTER 5:30 Today” and “NEWS CENTER Tonight,” and each Saturday and Sunday on NEWS CENTER’s statewide “Morning Report.”