The movie started off by showing a crack-whore, played wonderfully realistically by Halle Berry, who abandons her baby in order to score more drugs one night in a poverty-stricken section of Chicago's slums. The baby is discovered, and saved, by some garbage men who call the police. The baby is whisked away to a local hospital and barely survives, later taken in by an upper middle class women (Jessica Lange) and her husband (David Strathairn) when she pushes the doctors to save the baby. Berry goes to prison and the world goes about its business.

Several years later, after completing a shock probation program to clean up her life, Berry tries to improve her circumstance, only to find out her son is still alive. She goes to one of those free legal clinics and the fight is on for custody of little Isaiah (Marc Jefferies). From this point on, the focus shifts to the legal battles of both sides, with the white adoptive couple hiring a competent Black female lawyer and Berry represented by a firebrand (Samuel L. Jackson). Perhaps the best way to describe the show is to say it bounced back and forth between each side, lingering at times in order to impress some point or other.

Okay, the acting by Berry, Jackson, and Jefferies was actually well done. I believed their characters were the focal point of the writer and director since they were more than just two-dimensional stereotypes, although I would've preferred Jackson to have more airtime here. The others in the movie ranged from overdone (Lange) to vastly underutilized (the teenage daughter) and the movie lacked in a few other ways as well. The most important missing ingredient was seeing Lange and Jefferies bond more. It was almost as if we were expected to imagine the bonding process and there were plenty of other scenes that could've been edited in order to make room for such moments to have been added.

As it was, the movie lacked enough strengths to make it worth more than a rating of Rent It but fans of Berry, Jackson and even Lange will want to see this one, and maybe even own it. I thought the episodic nature of the movie was disjointed at times but that is the style of director Stephen Gyllenhaal (Leap Of Faith) who may have shied away from taking a side here, making it less fulfilling for me, but reasonably fair in how he presented each side. I suppose he could've done more with the legal argument too since the sole issue revolved around race and nothing else, making it too limited to be appreciated by a larger audience.

Picture: The picture was presented in 1.85:1 ratio anamorphic widescreen color. There was a fair amount of grain and scratches on the print but a decent transfer helped make this a pretty decent picture.

Sound: The audio was presented with a choice of either a 2.0 or 5.1 Dolby Digital English audio track. The vocals were clear as was the music but a few scenes were slightly hollow in this regard. I also didn't notice a lot of separation on the remastered 5.1 track although it was louder.

Extras: There was a paper insert with chapter listings.

Final Thoughts: The dvd lacked any extras and the movie wasn't as good as it could have been but my overall experience with it was worth a rental. The audio and video aspects were solid enough for this older movie and while it won't appeal to everyone, it may be something worthy for those who love tearjerkers.