Too good to ring true

As if to restore his credibility as the most politically correct black star of his day, following the murderously corrupt cop he played in Training Day, Denzel Washington has chosen the true story of Antwone Fisher for his debut as a film director.

Written by Fisher himself (while he was working as a security guard at Sony Pictures), it is one of those "uplifting" true-life sagas beloved by HBO. And, frankly, television is where it more appropriately belongs.

A series of fights while serving in the US Navy has brought Fisher before the military psychiatrist (played by Washington), who sets about trying to uncover the source of his simmering, repressed anger. Fisher eventually reveals that, as a child born in prison, he was left in the care of brutal and abusive foster parents.

The legacy is fury and an inability to form relationships (he is still a virgin at 25), until the good doctor unwittingly becomes his father-surrogate and finally suggests that he track down his surviving family members for what the Americans call "closure".

"I'm a good man," says Fisher unnecessarily towards the end of the film. Trouble is, he is too good. While Washington delivers a muchneeded riposte to the badass black characters that populate Hollywood movies, he has driven the thing into a mire of clichèd sentimentality. The film's Antwone - played impressively by newcomer Derek Luke - is simply too good to be true.

While one hesitates to question the truth of the material, it is the manner of its handling that finally stalls the movie. In spite of the best efforts of the actors, with the alarming exception of Washington himself, who is barely more than a cipher, the film is far too generalised to make any serious impact.

And I was puzzled by the psychiatrist's wife - a lovely performance from Salli Richardson - whose frustration with her husband comes to a head with the arrival of Fisher but who then inexplicably disappears from the picture. No closure for her, then.

Antwone Fisher
Cert: cert15