Calloused Hands

Although ultimately a bit tainted by sentiment-baiting mainstream contrivances, Calloused Hands proves to be a refreshingly powerful quasi-kitchen-sink drama with serious social relevance. Director Jesse Quinones's hard-bitten inner-city tale is centered on adolescent Miami-area baseball prodigy Josh (Luca Oriel) and his conflicted identity, brought on by his mother Debbie's (Daisy Haggard) overbearing street-thug-turned-aspiring-sales-professional boyfriend Byrd (Andre Royo). Byrd is a truly tragic character: a chronically underemployed African American surrogate father attempting to reclaim his own broken dreams in the form of his Jewish girlfriend's son's talent for baseball. But once Byrd realizes he's not going to get what he wants from Josh, or from his own frustrated attempts at selling water filters door to door, he begins reverting back to his Miami backstreet behavior, lashing out violently at anyone in his way and eventually dabbling in hard drugs again. The real turning point in this intense family drama comes when Debbie's real estate mogul father agrees to give her $10,000 to pay off her debts—if she has her son bat mitzvahed. Once Byrd realizes that Josh's interest in baseball is waning in favor of Judaism, all hell breaks loose. A powerful debut feature, this is highly recommended. (M. Sandlin)