Garantia de Vida

Laurence Fishburne is superb as Socrates Fortlow in the HBO movie of Walter Mosley's adaptation of his first book of Fortlow stories. Mosley wove his stories together fairly well in the screenplay. The quest for a job, the serious undertaking of mentoring Darryl, dealing with the dealer/mugger and with the car-jacker are cinematic. Daniel Williams' portrayal of Darryl as a vulnerable discarded child who has to act tough is very, very good. The friendship with Right Burke (Bill Cobbs) is plausible, but having "Right" narrate the film seems unnecessary to me. We can see in Fishburne's performance the kind of many Socrates is without Right telling us how heroic he is.

The relationships with women are less convincing, or at least less compelling. I don't remember what Luvia (Cicely Tyson) has against Socrates. His relationship with Iula Brown (Natalie Cole) lacks chemistry (and screen time).

A beautiful piece of cinema - don't be put off by the fact that it's listed as a television production - it has more heart and soul and craftsmanship than any fifty contemporary Hollywood films. Fishburne's portrayal of this very intricate character is one of the great male screen performances of his generation. I'll confess that I had more than a few tears rolling down my cheeks at the end of the film. Once again ignoring exceptional small-scale work, the Academy Awards and movie media in general proved themselves to be so much debilitating, meaningless, commercial rubbish by ignoring it. Resist the dumbing down of America and support films like this and, for example, "The Station Agent."

Ground breaking moral film running counter to the exploitative mainstream. Deserves, and will probably receive, serious study by film students for many years to come.

I can only imagine this would have been the kind of rare, special once-in-a-life-time project all who participated must feel pretty good about.

This is what I considered one on the more underrated films in our time.It doesn't happen very often where you actually take some type of a lesson from a film. This one was able to do just that.



This wasn't a movie about an angry black man who felt life owed him anything, it was just the opposite. It was about a man DOING something with his life after spending time in prison. Rather than being a drain on society, he worked for his money, and damn hard I must say. It didn't matter what he did to earn it, just as long as it was legal. He also was able to help a friend fill a void, another end his pain and help a child who needed guidance.



I know this movie was only fiction, but I wish our society were filled with people like Socrates.

Great cast and great story. Characters are multi-faceted instead of one-dimensional. No clichés and not stereotypical. One of my favorites of Laurence Fishbourne's roles as Socrates Furtlow - a man who's had challenges but still remains strong. I'm surprised that I really like and believe Natalie Cole's performance - she's at her best (in acting department). Cicely Tyson and Bill Cobb are too real - you know a senior citizen just like them, don't you? A movie for my collection - worth seeing again and again and again. I'm a real fan of black movies that show the community - real but with it's positive attributes as well as its challenges - and how folks coming together - just being neighborly - can make a difference in the community. Should be a classic.