In an attempt to have a new and clear life, Fresh, a young smart boy, who struggles against being raised in a harsh community of criminals and drugs dealers, who makes his mind and prepares for a brilliant plan to get rid of his evil bosses, based on chess rules.
The script by writer-director Boaz Yakin is fresh itself, marrying the physical violence of Fresh's world with the intellectual violence of competitive chess.
Sean Nelson is a quiet revelation as the title character, a child who actively participates in what he regards as the only game in town, yet consistently demonstrates more caution and smarts than his friends or relatives.
The strength of the piece is that it realises which aspects of its genre have been seen too many times, always coming back to Nelson's blank but expressive stare as he watches terrible things the director doesn't need to shove in our faces.
Glibly shocking, it would like you to think it deals with the hard realities of urban life, but in fact it uses its patina of social consciousness as a come-on for the most conventional kind of violent commercial filmmaking.
