a couple of film industry heavyweights are coming together to bring the story of a tragically famous middleweight to the big screen.

Director Norman Jewison and Oscar-winning actor Denzel Washington team up to interpret the Rubin "Hurricane" Carter story with The Hurricane.

Carter, who was a contender for the world middleweight title in the mid-'60s, had his boxing career as well as his hopes of a normal life dashed when he was wrongfully convicted of a triple murder in Paterson, New Jersey, in 1966.
The boxer and his 19-year-old friend John Artis were convicted on testimony from two career criminals. They spent the next 18 years (from 1967 to 1985) in New Jersey prisons.
The case gained widespread attention in 1975 with the release of Bob Dylan's
single, "Hurricane," which told the boxer's story. That same year, Muhammad Ali, prior to his fight with Ron Lyle in Las Vegas, told reporters, "I'm dedicating this fight to Rubin Carter."
In spite of these celebrity endorsements, it took the efforts of a teenager from the Brooklyn ghetto (Lesra Martin) and his adoptive Toronto family to gain clemency for the fighter.
Hurricane director Norman Jewison was honored at last year's Oscars with the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award, which recognizes "producers whose bodies of work reflect a consistently high quality of motion picture production." His long list of noteworthy films includes Moonstruck (1987), A Soldier's Story (1984) and Fiddler on the Roof (1971).

The 73-year-old Toronto-born director has also had a few flops in his long career (Bogus, Only You) but The Hurricane just may go down as his comeback film (of course, you'd have to believe that he really had somewhere to come back from).
In any case, the film played at this year's Toronto International Film Festival and many who saw it think it's Jewison's best film in years.

To add a certain poignancy to that evening's screening both Carter himself and Lesra Martin were in attendance. The audience was well aware of the fact that they were watching a film about a man unjustly imprisoned for 18 years while Carter watched along with them.
Denzel Washington turns in an inspired performance as Rubin Carter while Liev Schreiber shines as the sympathetic prison guard.

Of course, Denzel gets the lions share of the screen time since the movie is about his character. But more than that, it's a film about one man rising above circumstances that would turn most of us hard and bitter to become a spokesperson for the plight of
oppressed people everywhere. (Rubin Carter is currently a member of the Board of Directors of the Southern Center for Human Rights in Atlanta, the Association in Defence of the Wrongfully Convicted in Toronto, and the Alliance for Prison Justice in Boston.)

But The Hurricane is also about the tenacity of a teenage boy - Lesra Martin - who stumbled upon Carter's autobiography at a used book fair and was inspired enough by what he read to make a difference in another man's life.

Or, as Hurricane Carter says about his journey from incarceration to freedom: "Hate got me into this place, love got me out."
                                                                                                                 Don Marston