January 25, 2001 -- "Finding Forrester" is a film which celebrates intellect, learning and writing, making it a very rare commodity these days. While it isn't a great film, it is a refreshing change from the usual dreck.

The film stars Sean Connery of "Entrapment" as William Forrester, a reclusive author who lives in an apartment overlooking a basketball court where young Jamal Wallace (Robert Brown) plays. Wallace plays a mean game of hoops, but is secretly a very good writer and a gifted scholar. He doesn't dare let anyone know his secret for fear of being thought a geek. On a dare, Wallace breaks into Forrester's apartment to steal something. Unexpectedly, this leads to Forrester finding out Wallace's secret. He becomes the boy's tutor and mentor.

After Wallace scores high on a standard scholastic test, he is invited to attend a top-flight private school. The rich alumni hope his basketball skills will take the school's team far. He soon begins to chafe in the restrictive environment of the school. His literature teacher, Professor Robert Crawford (F. Murray Abraham of "Star Trek: Insurrection"), a frustrated writer, can't tolerate Wallace's brilliance. His tentative romance with Claire Spence (Anna Paquin of "X-Men"), daughter of the wealthy school alumnus Dr. Spence (Michael Nouri), is not approved of.

Wallace finds himself in a jam from which only the reclusive Forrester can save him. Will Wallace abuse Forrester's confidence? Will Forrester save Wallace? There are a number of interesting characters introduced in the movie, but only Wallace and Forrester are really developed. A few more would have been better. Wallace's brother, Terrell (singer-actor Busta Rhymes) had some promise, as does Paquin's character, or Wallace's mother. The romance between Wallace and Spence should have gone somewhere. Were the filmmakers squeamish about an interracial romance? Comparisons to "Good Will Hunting" are obvious, but this is not that good of a film.

The scenes between Wallace and Forrester are very good, however, the best thing about the movie. Connery and Wallace are both excellent. I felt I was really watching a master novelist teach a young writer how to create, how to get around writer's block, that kind of thing. That part was really good. The basketball wasn't convincing at all, and it could have been shortened in favor of character development. It was about half an hour of layup drills. Don't these guys ever play zone defense? Then there was the big game and the big free throws. What was that? What did it have to do with anything? The grafting of the basketball story onto the writing story just didn't work for me. The writing elements sure did, however. This film rates a C+.

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