This movie is about a troubled young black sailor and how his life was turned around.
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Antwone Fisher (played by Derek Luke) is a good sailor who is doing well in the U.S. Navy except for his anger and his tendency to fight at the slightest provocation. After his most recent fight, his commander confines him to base, fines him and orders him to seek counseling from the base psychiatrist, Dr. Jerome Davenport (played by Denzel Washington). Antwone resists working with Dr. Davenport, but this is the U.S. Navy and Davenport is a superior officer who uses his position to order Antwone to sit in his office each day until Antwone finally gives in and agrees to cooperate.
Antwone has led a tough life. His father was killed by an irate girlfriend two months before Antwone's birth. His mother, another girlfriend of his father, gave birth to him while serving time in the Ohio State Penitentiary for Women. Two months after his birth, Antwone was taken from his mother and placed in foster care where he was psychologically and physically abused by his foster mother and sexually abused as a young child by her daughter.
Given this and other harsh experiences in his life, it is easy to understand Antwone's anger. But Davenport is not one to use knowledge of past cruelties to simply explain and accept present behavior. As a man and a sailor, Antwone is now expected to face and overcome his past. Antwone is aided in this by Cheryl Smolley (played Joy Bryant), a female sailor he has met and begun dating. Cheryl is the opposite of Antwone. She is loving, kind and joyful. She also comes from a loving family, the thing that Antwone misses most in his past. Cheryl encourages and supports Antwone in his efforts to overcome his anger. But, in addition to her sweetness, Cheryl has character that has been forged partly by adversity in her childhood. In one scene she makes the passing comment that her father, whom she loves and adores, is a Navy veteran, who, while she was growing up, had to deal with emotional scars from his experiences in the Vet Nam War.
Under pressure from Davenport, Antwone finally realizes that he has to face and overcome his problems. Accompanied by Cheryl, he takes leave and flies back to his hometown to dig up and face his past. With much effort and persistence, he finally finds and meets both his father's family and his mother as well as confronting his foster mother and her daughter. This is the most powerful part of an otherwise powerful movie and these scenes make it difficult for any viewer to keep a dry eye.
The review of this Movie prepared by Chuck Nugent
A navy soldier has an anger problem and has to see a psychiatrist. The shrink discovers that the man was abused by his foster family as a child. He encourages the soldier to find his real family. The soldier then struggles to find his real family and to keep his anger to himself.
The review of this Movie prepared by Jack Bauer
Antwone Fisher is directed by Denzel Washington. It is based on a true story. Antwone (Derek Luke) is a Navy seaman who has a short temper. He lashes out at a fellow crew member and has to go to the psychologist Jerome Davenport (Denzel Washington). Davenport probes into Fisher's past and finds out that as a young adoptee he was physically and sexually abused. As Davenport helps Fisher cope, he urges him to find his real family.
The review of this Movie prepared by Dashaun Montanez
