Daily Archives: September 6, 1994

A Good Man In Africa

A dotty and disheveled but fairly watchable comedy of errors set in Africa, adapted by William Boyd from his own novel, directed by Bruce Beresford, and probably suffering from nervous studio recutting. Colin Friels plays the not-so-likable hero, an English diplomat posted to the newly independent state of Kinjanja, where he has to contend with a pompous boss (John Lithgow doing a mildly funny if predictable turn), a possible venereal disease, and his own as well as his boss’s indifference to the local customs. Sean Connery plays a serene local doctor who is understandably dubious about this fellow, and Louis Gossett Jr. plays a rising local politician; romantic interest is provided by Diana Rigg and Joanne Whalley-Kilmer. (JR) Read more

Fresh

An intermittently engaging first feature by writer-director Boaz Yakin, who previously scripted The Rookie, about a 12-year-old boy living in a Brooklyn slum who manages to extricate himself from drug running by applying lessons learned in speed chess from his estranged father (Samuel L. Jackson). Poised somewhere between a movie-familiar (i.e., semiscurrilous) look at inner-city life as trench warfare and a farfetched Hollywood revenge fantasy, this is kept alive largely through its first-rate performances, beginning with Sean Nelson’s as the boy; Giancarlo Esposito is also a standout. With Cheryl Freeman, and N’Bushe Wright. (JR) Read more