Dirty Deeds

Operating as a one-man crew, Curry gains fly-on-the-wall access to the Booker campaign while being treated as a fly in the ointment by James. And as we move toward Election Day, complete with celebrity endorsements from Spike Lee (in Booker’s corner) and Al Sharpton (for James), Street Fight amasses the cumulative tension of a crackerjack suspense thriller — by all means, if you don’t already know the outcome, restrain yourself from hopping on the nearest search engine. But what ranks Street Fight among the most scintillating of recent political documentaries is its steadfast refusal to take sides or play up the obvious David-vs.-Goliath parallels. Rather, Curry aspires to an even keel, pointing out that James himself was once a reformer who accomplished much progress for Newark, before poverty and crime rates went soaring and his office became mired in scandal. Curry likewise has much tough love for Booker, whose idealism may come at the expense of the streetwise savvy necessary to survive a Newark election.

Last month, Street Fight became one of the five nominees for this year’s Best Documentary Oscar, and, like Booker himself, it’s the clear underdog in a race against cuddly penguins, mutant fish, paraplegic rugby players and free-falling Enron executives. Curry’s film doesn’t have nearly as sexy a hook — it’s about the art and artifice of local politics, and that rarely sells tickets — and so it’s no real surprise that it’s only just now arriving in theaters. (It premiered on PBS in July of last year.) Still, this is classical activist filmmaking of the first order, a movie with the power to turn hearts, change minds and, just maybe, right the wayward course of an entire city.

Officer of the law: Gooding in Dirty Photo by Silver Nitrate Releasing

Street Fight: Booker takes it to the people. Photo by The Star Ledger

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More About

• Chris Fisher
• Marshall Curry
• Cory Booker
• Politics
• Local Politics

DIRTY| Directed by CHRIS FISHER | Written by FISHER, GIL REAVILL and ERIC SAKS | Produced by ASH SHAH, DAVID HILLARY and TIM PETERNEL | Released by Silver Nitrate Releasing | At selected theaters

STREET FIGHT| Written, produced and directed by MARSHALL CURRY | Released by Marshall Curry Productions | At Laemmle Fairfax and Laemmle One Colorado