Product Description

Jamie Foxx gives a ?career defining? performance (DAILY VARIETY) as Stan ?Tookie? Williams, founder of the notorious Crips street gang in this riveting true story. Awaiting execution on death row, Tookie is now determined to stop the violence he helped create. When he begins a crusade to steer children away from gangs by writing a series of powerful anti-gang books, he earns worldwide critical acclaim, as well as four Nobel Peace Prize nominations.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #26485 in DVD
• Released on: 2004-08-17
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
• Formats: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD, Full Screen, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: English, Spanish
• Dubbed in: Spanish
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 93 minutes

Amazon.com
In the annals of acting, 2004 will be remembered as a banner year for Jamie Foxx. Before his acclaimed turns in Collateral, alongside Tom Cruise, and Ray, the Ray Charles biopic, he produced and starred in this made-for-cable movie about former gangbanger Stan "Tookie" Williams. Directed by actor-turned-filmmaker Vondie Curtis Hall (Gridlock'd), Redemption tracks Tookie's rise as co-founder of L.A.’s notorious Crips, fall to death-row inmate, and rise again to Nobel Prize Nominee. Tookie’s reminiscences to journalist Barbara Becnel (Lynn Whitfield), while he is on death row, frame the story. Virtually unrecognizable from his days on In Living Color, a buffed-up, dreadlocked Foxx gives an effectively low-key performance, while Whitfield also shines in a less rewarding role. Redemption may not have the grandeur of Malcolm X or The Hurricane--and Tookie's transformation from man of violence to man of peace happens too quickly--but his story is just as inspirational. --Kathleen C. Fennessy

Customer Reviews

Good film about a lying killer
This may be a good film - but the subject, Stanley Williams, is a liar and a killer. That makes the title, REDEMPTION, a lie itself. There's no redemption for someone who denies his sins.

WORLD NET DAILY reports the following:

---
Williams, 51, was convicted of the 1979 murders of Tsai-Shai Yang, Yen-I Yang, Yee-Chen Lin and Albert Owens in two separate robberies. . . .

"Stanley Williams does not deserve this mercy," said the DA's report to the governor. "In fact, despite the overwhelming nature of the evidence against him, and despite the non-existence of any credible defense, Stanley Williams has steadfastly refused to take any responsibility for the brutal, destructive, and murderous acts he committed. Without such responsibility, there can be no redemption, there can be no atonement, and there should be no mercy."

Though Williams has steadfastly denied committing the four murders, the DA's report says he admitted the crimes to the following people:

James Garrett, a man with whom Williams lived most of the time before and after the murders were committed. The DA says Garrett possessed specific details of the crime and that Williams threatened to kill one of his accomplices, Alfred Coward.

Ester Garrett, the wife of James Garrett, who said Williams characterized the Taiwanese motel owners murdered in one of the robberies as "Buddhaheads." She said Williams also admitted killing another "white dude" for $63 and indicated he was also considering killing Coward.

Coward, one of Williams' accomplices, testified that Williams laughed about the murder of Owens. "You should have heard the way he sounded when I shot him," Coward recalled Williams saying. He followed this statement with growling noises.

. . . .

In addition, the DA report says Williams implicated himself in the murders at the motel by telling deputies after his arrest that five shots were fired.

"Williams, in a moment of mistaken candor, provided detectives with information only the killer would know," the report says. "Moreover, he repeated that knowledge twice. When confronted with this apparent knowledge, Williams against acting as the guilty party, retracted the statements and denied saying what he had just been heard to say. These statements and Williams' immediate retraction of them are admissions to the Brookhaven (Motel) murders. Williams knew five shots were fired because it was Williams who pulled the trigger each of those five times."

. . . .

While Williams' celebrity cheerleaders have claimed he has been a model prisoner throughout his sentence and have pointed to this as evidence of his rehabilitation, the DA's report contains 11 examples of incidents for which he was disciplined, beginning in 1981 and continuing through 1993. They include:

> a violent fight with another inmate June 30, 1981, in which he repeatedly struck the prisoner while kneeling over him;

> a refusal to line up for a return to his cell Jan. 26, 1982, in which he threatened a guard;

> throwing a chemical substance in the eyes of a guard Jan. 28, 1982, in an attack that resulted in chemical burns and emergency treatment;

> a second attack on a guard with a chemical substance Jan. 29, 1982;

> an attack on another inmate Feb. 16, 1984, in which Williams only stopped beating the prisoner when a warning shot was fired;

> a threat to kill a guard June 8, 1984;

> the beating of another inmate July 4, 1986 that only ceased when armed officers arrived on the scene;

> another fight with an inmate that led to his own stabbing, reportedly retaliation for his ordering another inmate to be stabbed;

> his continued association with the Crips street gang led to administrative segregation Oct. 19, 1988;

> the beating of another inmate Dec. 24, 1991, that only stopped after a warning shot was fired;

> another fight with other inmates July 6, 1993, in which a stabbing instrument (shank) was recovered.

The DA's report also says Williams threatened all of the jurors after they found him guilty.

. . . .

The DA also points out that Williams has steadfastly refused to be debriefed about his in-depth knowledge of the Crips street gang.

. . . .

In 2004, the city of Los Angeles alone, gang crimes accounted for 291 homicides, 717 attempted homicides, 2,616 felony assaults, 61 attacks on police officers, 2,308 robberies, 44 kidnappings, 36 rapes, 754 acts of witness intimidation, 20 acts of extortion and 188 carjackings.

"Although Stanley Williams is not directly responsible for every gang crime committed today, he was an integral founding member of a gang that has contributed, and continues to contribute, to the gang problem with devastating force," says the report. "This plague on our society continues to spread, and continues to take lives on a daily basis. Williams unleashed this violence in no less a manner than if he had released a deadly virus into our communities."

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=47647

Didn't meet my expectations
2.5 stars. Nice try, but I wasn't buying Jamie as Tookie. I know the filmmakers are trying to convince the audience that Mr. Williams had paid his debt to society or that he had redeemed himself through his movement to reverse what he'd created. And I believe he did-in a way. But there must be justice for the dead. That's as far as I'm gonna go with that since the point is moot now that Mr. Williams has been executed. As for production, this film felt a little choppy as far as direction and editing. And frankly, there were times when things came across as corny or campy. Overall, I wasn't all that impressed.

THIS MAN SHOULD TAKE THE STAND AND BE AN EXAMPLE
I work in an anti-gang program and alot of people around me disagree, but this is what I feel: If Tookie's anti-gang work meant anything at all, he should take the punishment that was given to him like a man. He should take a stand and be the example to the youths and gang memebers by showing them what will happen to them if they continue.....THEN he can get his Nobel Peace Prize. Otherwise, we are just influenced that he was bored in jail all these years with nothing else to do. As usual, the victims are forgotten. There is no bringing back his innocent victims, they are gone forever, and there would be no justice for their families. And for the people that are rallying to stop his execution - what if it was one of your family members that was killed by him, would you be supporting him then ? I dont think so. I understand that cultures have their ways and people do what they do to survive, but in no way should that lifestyle be glamourized to the extent that it is today. We've got to stop seeing gang members, drug dealers, pimps, etc as heroes. Everyone is on the African-American tip these days, but this is not about racism, or being on their side, this side or that side. When it comes to being so inhumane as to end someone's life, there is no 'side', that is a crime against human nature. Jamie Foxx is an excellent actor, but he's got to stop and think what he's doing - if that was one of his family members that was killed by Tookie, i bet you he would not be promoting his clemency. I say all this because of our children, our youths. They have such limited freedom these days, and its a shame that they cannot experience the wonderful childhood that most of us adults in our 30's (and above) had when we were children.