The Hurricane (1999 Film) - Plot

Plot

The film tells the story of middleweight boxer Rubin "Hurricane" Carter, whose conviction for a Paterson, New Jersey triple murder was set aside after he had spent almost 20 years in prison. Narrating Carter's life, the film concentrates on the period between 1966 and 1985. It describes his fight against the conviction for triple murder and how he copes with nearly twenty years in prison. In a parallel plot, an underprivileged youth from Brooklyn, Lesra Martin, becomes interested in Carter's life and destiny after reading Carter's autobiography, and convinces his Canadian foster family to commit themselves to his case. The story culminates with Carter's legal team's successful pleas to Judge H. Lee Sarokin of the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey.

In 1966, Rubin "Hurricane" Carter was a top-ranked middleweight boxer whom many fans expected to become the world's greatest champion in boxing. When three victims, specifically the club's bartender and a male and a female costumer, were shot to death in a bar in Paterson, New Jersey, Carter and his friend John Artis, driving home from another club in Paterson, were stopped and interrogated by the police. Although the police asserted that Carter and Artis were innocent and thus, "were never suspects," a man named Alfred Bello, a suspect himself in the killings, claimed that Carter and Artis were present at the time of the murders. On the basis of Bello's testimony, Carter and Artis were convicted of murder, claiming that Carter and Artis were the main suspects of the triple homicide in the club, and Carter was given three consecutive life sentences. Throughout the trial, Carter proclaimed his innocence, proving that his African-American race, his boxing career and status and his work as a civil rights activist were the real reasons for his conviction. Eight years later, Bello and a co-suspect, Arthur Bradley, who also claimed that Carter was present at the scene of the crimes, renounced and recanted their testimony. As a result, Carter and Artis were convicted once again. In the early 1980s, Brooklyn teenager Lesra Martin worked with a trio of Canadian activists to push the State of New Jersey to reinvestigate and rescrutinize Carter's case. In 1985, a Federal District Court ruled that the prosecution in Carter's second trial committed "grave constitutional violations" and that his conviction was based on racism rather than facts. Carter was finally freed, and he summed up his story by saying, "Hate got me into this place, love got me out."