There’s no doubt that Denzel Washington is one of the best actors in Hollywood history. This often shows when he gets to play troubled characters; for one, he famously went off-script for corrupt cop Alonzo Harris’ ever-so-quotable speech in 2001’s “Training Day.” Then, in the 2016 film adaptation of August Wilson’s “Fences,” Washington starred as the well-intentioned (if distant and prideful) dad Troy Maxson, and he delivered a performance so nuanced it was impossible to fully hate Troy, even at his most stubborn. Similarly, in 1999, he masterfully portrayed the wrongfully convicted boxer Rubin Carter in “The Hurricane” (the rare movie where Washington felt scared during shooting).
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Much like many other sports movies based on real-life people and events (including Washington’s own “Remember the Titans”), “The Hurricane” took several creative liberties, doing so mainly to paint the picture of a man who consistently dealt with the horrors of racism — and spent nearly two decades in prison for a triple murder he didn’t commit. Some of these creative liberties, however, didn’t sit well with one of the people portrayed in the film.
In early 2000, boxer Joey Giardello filed a lawsuit against Universal Pictures, Beacon Communications, and Azoff Films, claiming that he was inaccurately depicted in “The Hurricane” as a weak fighter who only won his middleweight championship defense against Carter in December 1964 because the judges were prejudiced against his Black opponent. “Virtually every boxing expert then and now will tell you I won the fight,” Giardello said, as quoted by the BBC. His statement was backed up by referee Robert Polis, who officiated the title bout and maintained that Giardello won it fair and square. “They portrayed Joey Giardello as an incompetent fighter,” he said. “I thought it was ludicrous.”
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The real Giardello was no bum in his title defense against Carter
In his lawsuit, Joey Giardello also requested that “The Hurricane” be revised to include a clip from his actual fight against Rubin Carter at the end of the film. A side-by-side comparison on YouTube corroborates his assertions that the bout wasn’t as lopsided as it was made out to be. In the movie, Giardello (Michael Justus) looks like an absolute tomato can, offering feeble defense against Carter’s hard-hitting attacks. In short, he looks nothing like a boxer who’s supposed to be the world middleweight champion. As for the actual fight, Giardello can be seen ducking, clinching, and matching Carter punch-for-punch in what seems to be a very competitive affair. In the end, the champion kept his title, winning easily on the judges’ scorecards despite the back-and-forth nature of the fight.
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Speaking to reporters after the fight, Carter was disappointed, saying that he felt he should have won nine out of the 15 rounds. He did not, however, mention anything about racism playing a role in the judges’ decision, and would later admit before his death in 2014 that Giardello was the better man in the ring during their fight.
The lawsuit was ultimately settled out of court, with Giardello, who died in 2008, receiving an undisclosed amount of money. Although the boxer didn’t get footage from the Carter bout added to “The Hurricane” as he was hoping, director Norman Jewison acknowledged in the DVD version’s commentary that the fight scenes were indeed fictionalized to a certain extent.
