Redemption: The Stan Tookie Williams Story

i am only 16 and always watch movies. My family gets dvds pretty much everyday so in my video shop i have literally seen nearly everyone. This one is different. It is a real & meaningful story leaving us thinking and learning more as the movie went by. For the people who live the life he grew up in, the meaning of the movie is something I'm sure they will think about. World Peace isn't going to happen overnight. We all know that. But to look at this mans awful life and know that if we keep on hating, we may lead the same life one day. if not us maybe our future children- thats scary. Stan Williams woke up his neighborhood to a life of crime and later did all he could to save them.. he is a hero and this movie touched my heart.

I was expecting more balanced story between who He was and who He became, but that doesn't happens here. Instead, 90 % of the movie is concentrated on who He became and it is done well with thoughtful dialogs.

Unfortunately it depicts a little of His violent past, blurry presented, and far from enough so we can feel the change. It is a warm story nicely told, but also doesn't goes beyond that, doesn't surprises, but follows a firmly determined line, and in the end instead culminating, slowly fades.

However a good job is done her, since this is a hard story to tell. In the end I must say, a great performance by Jamie Foxx, well transformation.

The Beginning In the spring of 1971, when Tookie was 17, he was in a very different situation. He was a high school student from South Central Los Angeles. He had a fearsome reputation as a fighter and as a "general" of South Central's west side. And, around that time, Tookie, along with Raymond Lee Washington, created what would one day be a super-gang, the Crips. Back in the day when Tookie and Raymond founded the Crips, many of the young people of South Central Los Angeles were involved with small gangs. Those gang members roamed South Central taking property from anyone who feared them, including women and children. To protect the community, Tookie and Raymond organized the Crips.

Growth By 1979, the Crips had grown from a small Los Angeles gang to an organization with membership spread across the State of California. By this time, Crips had also become just like the gang members they had once sought to protect themselves from -- Crips had become gangbangers who terrorized their own neighborhoods.

Soon the Crips lost both their leaders: in 1979, Raymond was murdered by a rival gang member, and, that same year, Tookie was arrested. He was charged with murdering four people. In 1981, Tookie was convicted of those crimes and placed on death row.

Life in Prison In 1987, Tookie began what became a 6 1/2-year stay in solitary confinement. After two years there, Tookie began to look at himself. He focused on the choices he had made in his life and then committed himself to make a drastic change. The long, difficult process he undertook to rebuild his character put him in touch with his true spirit, his own humanity. Only then could Tookie finally begin to care about the many children, mothers, fathers and other family members of this country hurt by the Crips legacy and by its explosive growth. The gang is now in 42 states and on at least one other continent: South Africa. Youngsters in Soweto and other South African cities have formed the Crips copycat gangs

Tookie Today Tookie greatly regrets the violent history of the Crips -- particularly how so many young black men have hurt each other -- and he wants to do what he can to stop it. The Tookie Speaks Out Against Gang Violence book series for elementary-school-age children is the first fruit of his longing to prevent young people of every color from becoming gangbangers, from ending up in prison, crippled by bullets, or killed.

Tookie is determined to make amends for having been a co-founder of the Crips. He intends to try in every way he can to guide those youngsters who have imitated him away from the road that led him to death row where he faces State execution. "Don't join a gang," he tells children in his books, writing from his San Quentin cell. "You won't find what you're looking for. All you will find is trouble, pain and sadness. I know. I did."

The topic of Stan Williams often incites heated and emotional debate. A movie about his life was therefore a perfect opportunity to inform both sides of the armchair debaters, showing why Tookie was put in prison and sketching the events leading to his self-claimed redemption. Tookie was a wretched man - he said so himself. The movie should have shown how wretched he was. It should have shown the violence he was exposed to when he was young, the murders he was convicted for, his violent behaviour in prison for many years before he had a change of heart. He also always claimed he was innocent of the crimes he was sentenced for, so there was an opportunity to film the murders with some doubt as to the perpetrator. It could really have built around the doubt, and played on the emotional conflict of carrying out the sentence or having mercy on a changed man. But the movie doesn't focus on the character change of Tookie. It never focuses on his violent nature, and the viewer is not taken on the journey of the evolving character. Instead, the film starts off with the nice Tookie Williams who has kind eyes and a nature that evokes sympathy. His former crimes are only eluded to, and he is depicted as an honest man seeking release from prison as a place he can't get used to and just doesn't belong. Jamie Foxx is a brilliant actor, but unfortunately does not portray the latent demon that was Tookie. Jamie is too nice-looking, and not nearly huge enough. If you are not familiar with the Tookie Williams story, this movie will seem to jump around a lot and will not make as much sense as it is supposed to. Those unfamiliar with the story will side immediately with Tookie and want him to be released from prison. As such, it is not an accurate portrayal, and it is not clear what the film was trying to create. The movie never really finds its rhythm and it is an unfortunate lost opportunity. The viewer should have a good idea of how bad Tookie was, and then be able to judge for himself the genuineness of the change, and only then start to question what Tookie's fate should have been. These questions did not need to be answered in the movie, but they should at least have been posed. Instead, the end result is a random and inelegant sympathetic sketch of Tookie's last days that ends on an imperfect cadence.

On December 13th, 2005, I read on the Brazilian newspapers that Stanley Tookie Williams III was executed by lethal injection after the denial of clemency from the Governor of California Arnold Schwarzenegger. Tookie was the founder of a Los Angeles gang called Crips, and condemned for the murder of four persons. After almost seven years in the death row at San Quentin, he decided, with the support of a journalist, to write instructive books for children, being nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize and to the Nobel Prize for Literature on the next year.

This touching story is very well directed and has another awesome performance of Jammie Fox, probably one of the best American actors in this moment. However, it is very difficult to give an opinion about the polemic and controversial situation of Stanley Williams only based on this movie and a few recent readings. First, I do not know how manipulative this film might be, since it shows only a regenerated and regretted man trying to help children to not follow his path, but never his crimes or how cruel he was while living outside jail. But anyway it is an excellent movie to make the viewer think about some issues. Lets admit that Stan Williams had really regenerated, therefore, accomplishing with the major objective of the penal system. In this situation, his death proves the complete failure of this system, destroying a well-succeeded case of human recovery of a criminal and giving the worst example to the other prisoners. In the other side, there are the relatives and friends of his victims: all of this situation, giving the chance of a murderer writing books for children, would be very offensive for them. I really liked this very awarded and nominated movie. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): "Redenção" ("Redemption")