| Universal Pictures | Release Date: November 6, 1987 |
Starring:
Denzel Washington, Evelyn Sithole, James Coine, John Matshikiza, Josette Simon, Juanita Waterman, Kevin Kline, Kevin McNally, Wabei Siyolwe, Xoliswa Sithole
Summary:
South African journalist Donald Woods is forced to flee the country, after attempting to investigate the death in custody of his friend, the black activist Steve Biko.
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The initial stages of this epic movie are somewhat stodgy, but once Attenborough achieves his momentum there's no holding him. The performances are excellent, the crowd scenes astonishing, and the climax truly nerve-wracking. An implacable work of authority and compassion, Cry Freedom is political cinema at its best.
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Cry Freedom personifies the struggle of South Africa's black population against apartheid in the evolving friendship of martyred black activist Stephen Biko and liberal white newspaper editor Donald Woods. It derives its impact less from epic scope than from the wrenching immediacy of its subject matter and the moral heroism of its appealingly played, idealistic protagonists.
Cry Freedom is not a great movie -- it's an earnest, clunky, awkward one without a fluid sense of story and with its most charismatic figure, the martyred black South African activist, Bantu Stephen Biko, gone before the film's 2 hours and 35 minutes are half over. [06 Nov 1987, p.1]
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