1st watched 9/30/2022 - (Dir-Krishna Shah):
Heavy-handed drama about a son returning from his stint in the airforce to try and have a normal life. The movie starts by introducing the family & friends of the man, played by Glynn Turman. His dad, played by James Earl Jones, is a drunk with a heart for poetry and his family. His dad's best friend and family doctor, played by Lou Gossett. The mother, played by Cicely Tyson, and a new entry; the son's fiancee, arrives at the house and is welcomed by the group. These festivities are abruptly interrupted by the arrival of the gang that the soldier was associated with before he went into the air force. The rock of the group, the mother, gets ill and it puts a damper on the family and the returning son, Jeff --- who wants to become a lawyer, but the in-ability to get work pulls him back into helping the gang with their revolution against the white world. This movie shows the reality of black life during the time, but has so many storylines that never get resolved. I guess it may be the point of the story, based on a tony-award winning play - but not showing the audience any real answers doesn't help the movie. Cicely's character keeps a positive spin up to the end, but we really don't know why, and an abrupt non-positive non-climatic ending doesn't help it's cause either. A historic movie in the sense that it's based on an all African-American play but just doesn't sit well, for the most part.
Review of The River Niger
