Cry Freedom

The initial stages of this epic movie are somewhat stodgy, but once Attenborough achieves his momentum there's no holding him. The performances are excellent, the crowd scenes astonishing, and the climax truly nerve-wracking. An implacable work of authority and compassion, Cry Freedom is political cinema at its best.

Only stony hearts won't be moved by Attenborough's vivid, if occasionally sentimental, evocation of a great well of human potential cruelly snubbed out.

It is probably silly and certainly counterproductive to reject what Cry Freedom is merely because of what it is not. If it is not a great political film, it is an honorable attempt to add to political debate; if it is not a definitive biography of a great man, it does contain a mesmerizing incarnation of Biko in the person of U.S. actor Denzel Washington. [06 Nov 1987]

The proficiency of the actors powers the movie despite a stiff script and Attenborough's preference for choreographed crowd scenes over intimacy.

Cry Freedom is not a great movie -- it's an earnest, clunky, awkward one without a fluid sense of story and with its most charismatic figure, the martyred black South African activist, Bantu Stephen Biko, gone before the film's 2 hours and 35 minutes are half over. [06 Nov 1987, p.1]

Attenborough's aims are more academic and political than dramatic. By following an initially wrongheaded white character, he clearly wants to reach out to similar audiences. Cry could have reached further.

A well-meaning film about the white liberal experience in South Africa – but, if you want to know about Steve Biko, look elsewhere.