Foxx's star turn can't redeem 'Redemption'
What FX's "Redemption" gives us is a persuasive dramatic turn by Jamie Foxx. Best known for funning around on "In Living Color," on his eponymous WB series, and in movies such as "Booty Call," Foxx brings an unexpected grace to his portrayal of Stan "Tookie" Williams, cofounder of the Crips gang, death row inmate, and Nobel prize nominee.
With controlled body language and a steady gaze, he projects cool authority as an incarcerated man who has journeyed through reactive violence into feelings of peace and self-love. His
performance creeps up on you, through the subtlety of his softened voice and his wary demeanor. Indeed, he's subtle enough to make you overlook the dime-store wig and shoe-polish beard the makeup artists have given him. What "Redemption" doesn't give us -- along with convincing hair -- is a script that does justice to Foxx's efforts. Like so many TV biopics, the movie, which premieres tomorrow night at 8, is pasted together from narrative shortcuts and an insultingly naive point of view. Williams, who is still on death row after a 1981 conviction for four murders, is portrayed solely as a victim and a noble hero. The movie includes only brief, sketchy allusions to the people he shot to death, so that it can focus on Williams's difficult youth and his redemption in solitary confinement. It's as if the filmmakers -- writer J. T. Allen and director Vondie Curtis Hall -- are afraid that they'll turn us against Williams with the truth about his early savagery.
This lack of context and history is a critical dramatic omission. If we don't feel the brutality of Williams's crimes, then we don't feel the full power of his moral conversion. Granted, few movies have time to chronicle every phase of a major psychic transformation, in this case from cold-blooded killer and king of the gangbangers to compassionate healer. But this movie is called "Redemption," and it behooves the filmmakers to convince us that emotional rescue is truly possible in the most heinous individuals. That was the great virtue of "Dead Man Walking," as we saw the light slowly dawn in Sean Penn's eyes. As it stands, Williams's shift is merely the result of lazy screenwriting.
"Redemption" is structured around Williams's relationship with Barbara Becnel (Lynn Whitfield), a black author who is writing a gang history of the Crips and the Bloods. Mystified by the phenomenon of black-on-black violence and concerned about the future of her own son, she's passionately devoted to the book. She goes to San Quentin to interview Williams, and after a rocky start, they strike up a warm friendship and professional collaboration. Eventually, Becnel helps Williams write children's books against gang life that lead to his Nobel nods.
As Becnel, who coproduced "Redemption," Whitfield manages only two or three shadings, ranging from self-righteousness to beaming admiration. CCH Pounder is more appealing, but her stately cameo as Winnie Mandela, who comes to San Quentin to pay homage to Williams, passes in a flash. Like the rest of the movie, she has great potential but leaves us wanting more.
Matthew Gilbert can be reached at gilbert@globe.com.
