Fresh is a 12-year-old boy who lives in Brooklyn. He is a runner for drug dealers. Because he is smart and honest, they respect him. Fresh lives with 11 other children in the spotless, orderly apartment of his aunt, who is a saint, he agrees, but who is helpless against the dangers that children face in the streets. Sometimes he sees his dad, an alcoholic who lives in a camper and supports himself by hustling chess games for cash. Sometimes he sees his sister, who has moved out of their aunt's apartment to live with a dealer. Her days pass in a sad haze of drugs.
Fresh knows a lot about drugs, and has a good relationship with a local dealer named Esteban, who is not a bad man as drug dealers go, and who is proud of Fresh - thinking of him almost like a son. Fresh's life, and the city that formed it, are drawn carefully in the early scenes of "Fresh," which was written and directed by Boaz Yakin, a sometime writer of Hollywood thrillers ("The Rookie"), who dropped out, moved to Paris, and told himself he would return to the movies only when he had something to say and control over how it was said. "Fresh" meets those qualifications.
You may think, having seen an urban thriller or two, that you can guess how "Fresh" feels and sounds. You would be wrong. The soundtrack is not filled with loud, angry music. The plot is not manic, but focused and perceptive. Fresh, the central character, is played in an extraordinary performance by Sean Nelson, as a boy who sees and understands much, and keeps his own counsel.
It is important that the film establish its world. We will need to understand it in order to appreciate the remarkable last act of this movie, in which Fresh pulls off a plan that is part scam and part revenge - an unforgiving retribution against the system that is destroying the lives of those he loves.
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