Fresh [DVD]

Fresh is a 12 year old African-American kid with an abundance of street smarts and a stash of several thousand dollars squirrelled away in an old tin can under the floorboards of a condemned tenement. He's a consummate wheeler-dealer, a drug runner who lives his life on the gritty streets of ghetto Brooklyn. He lives fast and hard and at the rate he's going, he'll be lucky to see his thirteenth birthday.Fresh's real name is Michael, and he lives with his Aunt Frances, a self-abnegating caretaker of eleven of Fresh's cousins, who have found with Aunt Frances the first stable home of their lives and don't appreciate Fresh's activities risking their stability. They're scared to be seen on the streets with him. "I'm not going back to no group home because of you," one of his cousins hisses. "If you mess this up, I'm gonna kill you."Fresh lives in a world of violence, depravity and despair that no child should ever have to witness. He sits by the bank of the East River and dreams of better things. He looks across the river at the towers of midtown Manhattan, a short subway ride away and as distant and inaccessible to him as the far side of the moon. His world is drugs, which keep him in funds and destroying the life of his teenaged sister, a hard-core junkie prostitute with the face of a black Madonna. His only parent is his dad, a veteran speed-chess player who has taught Fresh everything he knows about the game. "Your queen is nothing but a pawn with fancy moves," he advises Fresh. "Play your opponent, not the game -- if your opponent plays a defensive game, be aggressive." And vice-versa. Chess is, after all, a metaphor for life, and the name of the game is survival.Fresh is surviving as best he can. He's a drug runner for two different groups; he runs heroin for Esteban's Latino crew, and crack for Corky's African-American gang. He's smart, savvy, and above all, he knows how to keep his mouth shut. Something his best friend, Chuckie, has never learned and which will eventually end up costing him, big time.Survival in Fresh's world is a dicey prospect, and when one of Corky's lieutenants, a thug named Jake, shoots up the playground after being humiliated in a game of pickup basketball by a much younger player, killing not only his opponent but a little girl Fresh has a crush on, something in Fresh snaps. He's had it with all the drugs and the mayhem that makes up his world. Dad's lessons in speed chess stand him in good stead. Fresh sets up a chessboard in his room, each piece representing a player in his world, and with cold, analytical calculation and breath-taking audacity, he plays both ends against the middle, setting the drug gangs against each other and sitting back to watch them wipe each other out.Boaz Yakin's first feature film is a tour de force which showcases not only himself as a gifted director, but a dazzlingly talented actor in Sean Nelson. Nelson doesn't so much play Fresh as he becomes Fresh. He's such a natural that he doesn't seem to be acting at all. Samuel L. Jackson is excellent as Fresh's dad, a failed person and parent who has managed to give Fresh the one gift he has, a talent for speed chess that helps him transform his life. Giancarlo Esposito is suitably reassuring and menacing by turns as the heroin dealer Esteban, and Ron Brice is chilling as the paranoid crack dealer Corky. Yakin's direction brings out all the grit, the despair and hopelessness of the environment these people are trapped in, either by choice (Corky and Esteban) or involuntarily (Fresh and his sister). We can only wonder what it must be like to live in such a place, with no way out."Fresh" suffered from abominable distribution when it was first released in 1994, which prevented it from being much better known. I hadn't even heard of this film until I caught it on cable TV one night a few months ago. Since then I've seen it four times, and each time I come away awed at how Yakin has caught to perfection the lives of his characters and the mean streets they live in. And the final scene, Fresh staring at his dad over one more game of speed chess with tears running down his face, is like a visceral kick. Consummate wheeler-dealer or not, this kid is, after all, only twelve years old.Judy Lind

Excellent movie

The storyline and executions of the characters were phenomenal! I highly recommend it

Fresh (Sean Nelson) is a 12-year-old drug dealer who finds himself trapped in a web of poverty, corruption and racial tension in Brooklyn, New York. When his drug-addict sister Nichole (N'Bushe Wright) starts sleeping with local drug lord Esteban (Giancarlo Esposito), Fresh calls upon the skills he learned playing chess with his alcoholic father and speed-chess champion Sam (Samuel L. Jackson) and devises a complex strategy that will free both himself and his sister. I like the part when he plays chess with Sam. I can't believe what Fresh did to a innocent dog. Sadly what happened to his girlfriend. This wouldn't be my favorite movie but it was good. Highly recommended.

Like other reviewers, I was impressed by this movie -- but perhaps for different reasons. There are so many things that are well done in this film that it's hard to list them all, but a lot of them center on the film's complexity: the director's avoidance of stereotypes or simplistic characterizations. As a result, it's hard not to feel ambivalent about most of the characters. Even the saintly Aunt Frances sacrifices someone else when she feels she must. And, likewise, the meaning of much of the action is left unclear. Other reviewers have made some assumptions about Fresh's intentions and motivations that I find myself disagreeing with: instead, I think the director has left them ambiguous. Clearly, Fresh sets up Chuckie -- but how far did he intend for it to go? Chuckie was meant to spill the beans, but was he also intended to stop the bullet? And why, exactly, does Fresh finally cry in the final scene? I can think of several reasons, each rather different.In the end, it's this that makes the movie so enjoyable to me. The director doesn't tell, he shows -- just as in real life, where people don't tell you exactly what they're thinking, but show you bits and pieces, and leave you to put it together for yourself. The movie's realism derives in large part from this. You find yourself watching it, trying to figure out what's going on in the mind of a kid with a fantastic poker face, but you never know for sure.As for the soundtrack, well...it's so different from what you might expect to hear coming out of a radio in that or any other neighborhood, that it seems somehow like the music of Fresh's thoughts.

The movie starts out slow for all the characters to be introduced then everything falls into place, very great movie!

Where can I start with this movie...wow it is 1 of the greatest films ever. It truely shows city life like no other films does. I happen to live in a city, a bad one at that Baltimore. And this film represents how city life really is. The actors in this film are extrodinary. First time I ever seen this, I picked it up mid-way thru..and I watched the end and never understood alot of it, however it has such a fast-paced un-boring script and plot I could still get into it, I found out what it was called and rented it. There are very few movies like this..when a movie is unsad plot wise, but still can bring you to tears because it is so raw and real you know its got greatness written all over it. When people come up to me, and we start talking about this movie or that movie and we get on the topic of urban movies there are always 3 movies I hear, Scarface, Boys In The Hood, and New Jack City. But I always recommend Fresh, and after I talk to people after they've seen it they all say this is better than all 3 combined. 5 Stars is a disgrace to this film, it should be 5 Millions stars. Greatest Movie I have ever seen! Please, if you have not seen this film rent it, buy it just find a way to see it..you will not be disappointed! I can gurantee that, it is a great film!

German dialogue. Disappointed

Quick delivery wicked copy. Been looking for this film for a long time if you like Boyz N The HooD and Menace to Society I would recommend you get this film

Masterpiece watched it over 10 years after it was made still fresh, powerful and moving.

Received in excellent order and an excellent film to brighten up the day, so thank you very much for the good service

Amazing movie, saw it years ago and now finally have a copy - highly recommend