Idealistic ‘Up Against the Wall’ Doesn’t Measure Up

Well-meaning, idealistic, “Up Against the Wall” (UA Egyptian), is a movie without coarse or crass ambitions, a movie whose heart is in the right place. Unfortunately, very little else is.

A low-budget tale of the social and family crises of a 14-year-old black high school track athlete, it’s about Winning the Great Race of Life, Coming of Age, facing Big Moral Decisions. Directed by one-time “Superfly” star Ron O’Neal, it’s an obvious morality play. Too obvious. The script, by Jawanza Kunjufu, seems designed for an illustrated lecture on the problems of Contemporary Black Youth, and O’Neal and his talented cast never rise above the simple, often sermonizing dialogue, the stolidly unimaginative format.

“Up Against the Wall” plays like a film designed by teachers for an audience of students. The characters constantly lecture each other, with protagonist Sean (Catero Alin Colbert) getting the lowdown on life from his friends, his strong, prideful mom (Marla Gibbs), his lovable coach (Oscar Brown Jr.) his crack-dealing brother (Stoney Jackson) and O’Neal himself, as an all-purpose father figure.

Yet why teach him? Sean is less Everykid than Superkid: a great pure-hearted athlete who doesn’t seem to need lessons--though everyone else does, especially his mother. At one curious point, she spends several minutes unraveling Sean’s tangled heritage with his newly discovered father, while her other son lies critically injured, in clear view, outside.

If “Up Against the Wall” (MPAA rated PG-13, for some violence and sexual talk) caught the texture of modern black life, as Charles Burnett does in movies like “To Sleep With Anger,” it would have had force and value. But the soap opera-morality play format works against realism; the sermons, too predictable and pat, never take hold of our heart.