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...indeed, some of Biko's strength of character and the genuine threat he posed to apartheid shine through this film...

...Only in the last half of the film, which tells the story of Woods's flight from the South African police when he tries to force an inquest into Biko's murder while "in custody," does Cline get material strong enough to make him perform...

...In some courtroom scenes, it is clear how his stylish command of words and tone, his union of passionate idealism and constructive reason was far more dangerous to the status quo than a ranting radical's violent posturing...

...One can contrast Cry Freedom here with last year's independent (and risky) production from Botswana, Place for Weeping, which had all that Attenborough's film lacks except publicity and giant budget...

...But his main problem is having to play a typical white liberal trekking the well-traveled route from dismissal of black activism to sympathy and finally hero worship...

...The problem isn't the subject...

...But Attenborough's penchant for overstatement makes Biko too saintly, too much of a good thing...

...655...

...Denzel Washington (from A Soldier's Story) plays Biko...

...It is also the only part of the movie which has genuine dramatic life...

...But Cry Freedom is not simply a political film with heart and soul...

...it's a Big Important Political Film, and collapses under its own weight...

...Several other films have taken on similar territory with better results...

...Perhaps Attenborough thought that he was splicing epic with expressionism...

...These scenes, however, do not occur between Woods and Biko...

...I have no argument with Attenborough's politics, and I hope that this film embarrasses South Africa, if on no other count than its startling record of people committing suicide while in police custody...

...in Cry Freedom Cline makes the same trip, but with none of the sickening feel of moral poison that Weir injected into his scenes...

...In addition to the flashback courtroom sequences, several episodes in the film free float in time zones not yet identified...

...Producer/director Sir Richard Attenborough, maker of Gandhi, here applies his epic techniques to a new and similarly sympathetic subject, South African activist Steven Biko, or, more precisely, his relationship with Johannesburg journalist Donald Woods...

...Both actors eventually fit their roles well, although Cline at first seems uncomfortable both with his South African accent and anglicized formality and polish...

...moreover, the film's double focus and confusing editing mar dramatic development...

...they occur in a trial seen in flashback, and are presented by editing so inept that it is hard to know even if Biko is the defendant...

...Kevin Cline (Sophie's Choice, The Big Chill) plays Woods...

...In Peter Weir's Year of Living Dangerously the white liberal (Mel Gibson) took some frightening, dizzying tours through Jakarta slums...

...This is no fault of Washington in the Biko role...

...he convincingly demonstrates why Biko so threatened the Afrikaners, particularly when he gracefully but persistently insists that his movement will use nonviolence to achieve interracial harmony...

...The effect is confusion or deflation...

...Despite being baited, Washington's Biko refuses to participate in the polarization that produces strawmen for apartheid apologists...