The Power Of One

Stars: Stephen Dorff (TV's "Roseanne"), John Gielgud (Chariots Of Fire, Arthur), Morgan Freeman (Driving Miss Daisy, Robin Hood: Prince Of Thieves, Glory). From the same writing/directing team (Robert Mark Kamen and John G. Avildsen) that brought us the wonderful The Karate Kid comes the not so wonderful The Power Of One, which drummed up only 2.7 million at the boxoffice. Loosely based on Bryce Courtenay's semi-autobiographical novel, the film follows the unbelievable story of P.K. (played by three different actors at 7, 12, and 18), an English kid growing up in 1930s South Africa. Orphaned early on, P.K. is cruelly ridiculed for being English at the boarding school run by white Afrikaners (spit on, peed on, hung up by his feet, etc.). Visiting a friend of his grandfather's in prison, P.K. meets Geel Piet (Morgan Freeman), a prisoner who teaches P.K. how to box. Over the next five years, P.K. sees a lot of inhumanity at the prison (viewers watching prison guards with billy clubs beating a prone black man cannot fail to see the similarities in the Rodney King beating). In one of the most uncomfortable scenes to watch in the entire film, Geel Piet eats excrement from the shoe of a sadistic guard. P.K.'s stay ends with an elaborate prison concert in which he supposedly leads hundreds of Zulus from different tribes in a multi-tongued song. Somehow, from this, emerges the myth that P.K. will unite the warring factions of South Africa. In the final third, he does teach some of the Zulus how to read and write English, but this significant accomplishment has to compete with P.K.'s boxing and his my-my-it's-a-small-world fight with the boy-turned-policeman who taunted him at the boarding school a decade before. Blacks are continually beaten and humiliated throughout the film as in other films which try to accurately portray the horrors of apartheid. The difference here is that blacks are beaten as a backdrop to a Karate Kid/Rocky spinoff--and that's offensive. Audience: Families who are attracted by the "PG-13" rating will be horrified by the cruelty of this not-for-kids film, while adults of sense will be just horrified.