Thursday, January 2, 2014

Film Review: Freedom Writers (2007)



Freedom Writers (2007)

Producer    : Danny DeVito, Michael Shamberg, Stacey Sher
Distributor       : Paramount Pictures
Release date  : January 5th 2007
Duration          : 122 minutes

Conflicts - especially racial ones - always make great stories to tell, unexceptional to be filmed. This film is a stimulant of peace, which shows dominant values of tolerance.
Freedom Writers is a film that puts racial conflict as its theme. In its plot, Richard LaGravenese as the director serves us quite strong racial conflict scenes by scenes in the beginning. The film also has interesting way to its climax and resolution. I’m very sure that the audiences wouldn’t be bored with this
film, because there are so many “spices” as long as the movie goes. The twists in the end of short scenes, student-teacher conversation in yankee and urban slang, gunshots, and the exploration of each character’s life background will absolutely not let your view away from the screen.
Produced in 2007, this movie brings us back into 90’s, precisely in 1992 where the racial gap was so contrast between students. The music division of this film – consists of Mark Isham, Will I Am, and RZA – really made great impressions of 90’s suburban students life by hip-hop beats. This kind of detail strongly brings us to the situation, being, culture, and taste of environment where these students have their studies. Another analysis from artistic division, this $ 21 million budgetted film has made eye-catching images of deliquencies in the state school, for example there were shots that show a student spray painted one of the school’s wall and get caught by the principal, marker-scratched class tables, and even spilled fresh gore from a Chinese-blood student who got shot by a Latin-American guy in a mini-market scene – I also remember when the mini market owner hand a shotgun out of his cashier table right after the shooting, which rushed the young audiences’ blood. A film is not separatable from the art of directing, is it? Richard LaGravenese, again, has made a quite well directing for his actors and actrees. Subjectively, it’s quite well, but not the greatest. The acting has created impression of amusement more than empathy from the viewers. Subjectively, even the most touching part of the movie isn’t built by the acting performance, but the plot.
Well then, as an evaluation, this film is great, two thumbs up for every strong point in this movie. The movie has great artistic division, great music compositions and beats, great story in every sequence, and most of all, great value it tells.

Reviewed by Bertold Gerry
 image by www.imdb.com

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