Life, Love, Pain, and Strategy on a Brooklyn Chessboard
Fresh is easily in my top ten favorite movies of all time. The entire movie is superb. Do yourself a favor and rent it, if you can find it.
Plot Summary:
Fresh is the story of a young teen living in the projects of Brooklyn, New York. Don't mistake this for another of those tired "urban dramas", though. This film makes no excuses, apologies, or justifications. It just happens that the setting needs to be urban for the story to unfold.
The movie stars Sean Nelson as the twelve year old nicknamed "Fresh". He lives in an apartment with his sister and several of his cousins (all those kids are not his brothers and sisters. This is a major point.), under the weary eye of his Aunt Frances. She's obviously physically and mentally exhausted from having to care for so many children in such a hostile environment. She genuinely has feelings for all the children, but only so much as she can allow herself to. The actress does an excellent job of relaying this to the audience.
Fresh's only sibling is his drug-addicted older sister Nicole, played by actress N'Bushe Wright. He desperately wants to protect her from the drugs and other negative influences of their environment, but since he's only a child, he doesn't have the means or the knowledge of how to go about it.
The young protagonist's only real escape are the games of speed chess he plays in the park with his estranged father Sam, played by Oscar-nominated actor Samuel L. Jackson. Jackson's character is one of the best speed chess players in the city and has the "trophies" to prove it. Stapled to the wall of his dilapidated mobile home, he has money autographed by some ranked World-Class chess players as proof that he defeated them in speed chess. Sam knows that chess becomes a vastly different game when the speed clock is applied, and that even the best regular chess players tend to make mistakes or completely fold under it's pressure. He even says this about a hypothetical match with the enigmatic Charlie Fischer, "put the clock on him. I'll eat his a** up." Under his father's strict tutelage, Fresh has become an extremely skilled chess player, easily defeating some of the best adult players in the park.Fresh helps support his family by running drugs. Being the young entrepreneur that he is, he chooses to run drugs for two different local drug dealers. On one hand, he runs cocaine for the ruthless dealer Corky, then runs heroin for Esteban, played by the talented Giancarlo Esposito. Esteban, although a married family man, is desperately in love (lust is probably a better word) with Fresh's sister. You'll shudder in the scene where Esteban describes to Fresh what it's like to be with Nicole. It's very twisted. So for Fresh, the only two tools he has available to him are the few thousand dollars he's saved from drug running, and his mind, honed and disciplined by a lifetime of playing speed chess with his father. He sets up a chessboard in his room, with each piece representing a person in his life that he must use to accomplish the goal. His friends, his family, his employers, and even his sister all become chess pieces and his neighborhood becomes the board. With a single move, the "game" begins.
So to anyone who's tired of watching trite, uninspired "urban dramas" and is just looking for a good movie, please check out fresh. The storyline is compelling, the acting is almost flawless, and the direction is seamless. I very highly recommend buying this movie. You will not be disappointed.Read full review
