SING SING
(director/writer: Greg Kwedar; screenwriters: screenplay & story, Kwedar & Clint Bentley; cinematographer: Pat Scola; editor: Parker Laramie; music: Bryce Dessner; cast: Colman Domingo (Divine G), Paul Raci (Brent Buell, theater program director), Clarence Maclin (Divine Eye), Sean San Jose (self); Runtime: 107; MPAA Rating: R; producers: Clint Bentley, Monique Walton, Greg Kwedar; A24; 2023)
“It’s filled with hope, compassion and a path for the reformed inmates to get a second chance.”
Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz
Based on a true prison story set in Sing Sing, upstate New York’s maximum security facility. It was inspired by the Rehabilitation Through the Arts project. The program teaches prisoners theater skills in many prisons across the country. In this case, Sing Sing inmates are performing a fantasy-comedy musical. The story appeared in a 2005 article in Esquire magazine.
Greg Kwedar (“Guest Room”/”Transpecos”) directs and writes it with Clint Bentley as an uplifting film showing that prison rehabilitation can work if done right. It blends together actual criminals playing themselves with excellent professional actors like Colman Domingo and Paul Raci.
The great actor Colman Domingo plays John “Divine G” Whitfield, an inmate who was in real life a violent felon who became a visionary and inspirational driving force behind the Rehabilitation Through the Arts program and wrote plays for it. The real Divine G has a cameo.
The group’s star player, Clarence “Divine Eye” Maclin, plays a fictionalized version of himself, as he’s supposedly transformed from being a tough felon by experiencing Shakespeare.
The professional actor Paul Raci superbly plays the theater director Brent Buell.
The low-budget drama balances humor with poignancy. It’s filled with hope, compassion and a path for the reformed inmates to get a second chance. I would have liked it even better if it wasn’t so sentimental and so ‘rah rah’ about its limited successes.
It played at the Toronto Film Festival.
REVIEWED ON 9/20/2024 GRADE: B
dennisschwartzreviews.com