Mit dem Rücken an der Wand

Ground breaking moral film running counter to the exploitative mainstream. Deserves, and will probably receive, serious study by film students for many years to come.

I can only imagine this would have been the kind of rare, special once-in-a-life-time project all who participated must feel pretty good about.

But human on the inside. A warm, thoughtful, touching examination of both men and women. The little indignities we visit on each other everyday whether we are aware of them or not. The strength to do the right thing. This film is possibly Larry Fishburne's finest performance, subtle, nuanced, deeply felt. He seems so natural that this could be a documentary. Black on the surface because Walter Mosley can only write what he knows,as I can only write about what I have experienced, but human inside because here is a thoughtful man reflecting on a world that is not black and white but multicultural and multi-ethnic with the focus on what he knows.

This film should be shown in every school. It may not cure the troubles we see there but those it does reach will be changed.

This is what I considered one on the more underrated films in our time.It doesn't happen very often where you actually take some type of a lesson from a film. This one was able to do just that.



This wasn't a movie about an angry black man who felt life owed him anything, it was just the opposite. It was about a man DOING something with his life after spending time in prison. Rather than being a drain on society, he worked for his money, and damn hard I must say. It didn't matter what he did to earn it, just as long as it was legal. He also was able to help a friend fill a void, another end his pain and help a child who needed guidance.



I know this movie was only fiction, but I wish our society were filled with people like Socrates.

Laurence Fishburne is superb as Socrates Fortlow in the HBO movie of Walter Mosley's adaptation of his first book of Fortlow stories. Mosley wove his stories together fairly well in the screenplay. The quest for a job, the serious undertaking of mentoring Darryl, dealing with the dealer/mugger and with the car-jacker are cinematic. Daniel Williams' portrayal of Darryl as a vulnerable discarded child who has to act tough is very, very good. The friendship with Right Burke (Bill Cobbs) is plausible, but having "Right" narrate the film seems unnecessary to me. We can see in Fishburne's performance the kind of many Socrates is without Right telling us how heroic he is.

The relationships with women are less convincing, or at least less compelling. I don't remember what Luvia (Cicely Tyson) has against Socrates. His relationship with Iula Brown (Natalie Cole) lacks chemistry (and screen time).

I won't go into details of the storyline, as you can read that from other reviews. I will say that this is one of the best dramatic films I've seen that most haven't even heard of. It is a very moving story with many underlying plots that come together well and each stand out to be noticed. The acting was Grade A from everyone casted, the messages (and there were many) are relevant and stirring, and there just aren't enough good things to say about this film. I think that Larry Fishburne is one of our better black actors, I believe better than Denzel based on the variety of characters that Fishburne has played over the years, and this may have been his best work. His character and his acting is that strong in this film. If you've seen the movie "Pitch Black" with Vin Diesel (now that they've made a sequel 4 years later), you know that it was a slow, kind of boring movie, but Vin played his character Riddick with such coolness that his role made the flick. Fishburne does the same outstanding performance, but unlike Pitch Black, everything else about Outnumbered was strong in supporting the lead character. An excellent film that I would highly recommend.