Fresh

 2.5/4

Starring: Sean Nelson, Giancarlo Esposito, Samuel L. Jackson, N'Bushe Wright, Ron Brice

Rated R for Intense, Realistic Depiction of Urban Violence, and for Drug Content, Pervasive Language and Some Sexuality

"Fresh" starts out strong in its set-up but falls apart in its payoff.  It's an ambitious film, to be sure, but writer/director Boaz Yakin's vision exceeds his grasp.  This is what happens when the filmmaker's approach isn't deft enough to pull off what he is trying to achieve.

Fresh (Nelson) is a young kid working as a drug courier for some local dealers.  He's smart and does what he is told, earning him the respect of the nasty people he works for.  Fresh has bigger dreams than running drugs; he's been saving up money for years to escape the projects and save his heroin-addicted sister Nichole (Wright) from the clutches of the dealers.  An act of impulsive violence spurns him into action.  Taking the lessons in chess that he learned from his alcoholic father (Jackson), Fresh begins a dangerous game to take down the dealers, rescue his sister and get out of the projects.

The film's biggest draw is Fresh himself.  Played with astonishing restraint and focus by Sean Nelson, who was only 13 at the time of filming, this is a character who commands the screen like few others do (and of them, most are considerably older).  Fresh is universally respected for his intelligence, but no one has any idea just who they are dealing with.  He's always two steps ahead, reading the room, knowing how to gauge any situation for his own benefit.  He knows when to keep his mouth shut, tell the truth, or bluff to play one person against another.  All the while he is able to convince everyone that he is on their side, in their corner.  Nelson never pushes the character or goes over the top.  He uses his eyes to scan, plot and use in order to get what he needs.  Just like the character he plays, this is Nelson's show.  Everyone else exists within his orbit.  Most are solid, but two stand out.  Giancarlo Esposito (who had a good year last year playing the villainous Anton Castillo in the video game "Far Cry 6") radiates malice as Fresh's main opponent.  And Samuel L. Jackson is in top dramatic form as Fresh's father Sam.

As a character study, "Fresh" works.  The kid is smart, quirky and intriguing enough to build a film around.  It's when the film shifts into thriller territory that it runs into trouble.  Putting it simply, the film can't keep up with him.  Too much of his plan is unexplained or poorly motivated.  Not least of which being a dog fight and the brutal murder of a dog.  Neither scene was necessary, and as such they create a lot of ill will.  When thrillers detail complicated plots and schemes, they must ensure that the audience can follow through with what the original plan was, what went wrong and why, and how the characters are going to deal with the problem.  "Bound," a somewhat similar thriller to "Fresh," did this perfectly.  Here, however, the director keeps too many of his cards hidden and is easily sidetracked.  And worst of all, many of the minor characters who have crucial parts to unwittingly play in Fresh's scheme are not precisely identified, leading to confusion that is nearly fatal to a movie like this that depends on the audience being with the lead character every step of the way.

What ultimately kills the film is that, probably by accident, Fresh becomes impossible to identify with when we desperately need to be on his side.  The seams in the plot are so wide that we lose sight of the smart kid we grew to like in the first two reels and instead only see a Machiavellian figure who apparently thinks nothing of letting anyone (and I do mean anyone) be murdered as long as he gains something from their deaths.

I wanted to like "Fresh," I really did.  But I just didn't.