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The Oscar bees are busy buzzing about Denzel Washington for his turn as Rubin "Hurricane" Carter, the middleweight boxer whose tainted (to put it mildly) conviction for a multiple homicide in Paterson, N.J., in 1966 became a cause célèbre in the 1970s. And Washington is spectacular, whether playing Carter as a young paratrooper, a cutthroat contender for the title, or a middle-aged man who set his mind free through study while his body remained locked up for some 20 years. Then again, Washington is a highly acclaimed performer with one Academy Award already on his mantle—you expect the best from him. Which makes it all the more amazing that he's nearly knocked out in The Hurricane by one Vicellous Reon Shannon, a moon-faced young actor (much younger-looking than his 28 years) who plays Carter's literal savior, Lesra Martin.

As Martin, Shannon has to ring as many changes as Washington does, but they're all internal, as he progresses from illiterate Brooklyn street kid to graduate of a prestigious Toronto high school. Along the way, he buys his first book for a quarter—a tattered copy of Carter's prison-written autobiography, The Sixteenth Round. It's a fateful purchase, one that will bring Carter freedom after years of failure by his committed, skilled attorneys.

For as Martin becomes convinced of Carter's innocence and possessed by the man's battle, he convinces his three mentors—played by Liev Schreiber, John Hannah, and Deborah Kara Unger—to devote their lives to helping free Hurricane. Wealthy, white, and Canadian, the trio has no possible reason for taking up the cause, but they do. And through painstaking detective work Sherlock Holmes would envy, Martin and his friends prove, beyond reasonable doubt, that Carter was railroaded by corrupt police and prosecutors.

It's a true story both horrifying and inspiring, one that needs no dramatic posturing. That perhaps is director Norman Jewison's special achievement. His entire cast, including Washington, plays almost every scene in a straightforward, low-key manner. Schreiber, Hannah, and Unger aren't forceful do-gooders, but quiet, methodical, professional types (working in real estate, no less!) with highly logical minds. And except for one scene in which Carter fears the loss of the autobiography he's writing if his cell is searched, and another in which solitary confinement fragments his mind, Washington plays the boxer as a highly controlled man determined to make prison work for him. ("I have to concentrate on doing the time," is his mantra.)

Carter did the time and belatedly won justice, both in the courts and on the screen. He now lives in Toronto, the city that produced his salvation. For some reason, his native New Jersey no longer appeals.