Street Fight , a 2006 Academy Award nominee for Best Documentary Feature, is an engaging and startling look at modern
politics. The movie revolves around two Democratic mayoral candidates, newcomer Cory Booker and incumbent mayor Sharpe James, in the 2002 Newark, New Jersey elections. While the movie clearly favors young and vocal Booker, you can hardly blame director Marshall Curry for being biased - after all, every time he tries to film Sharpe, the mayor sends police after him to confiscate his camera.
Street Fight , as its title suggests, is a shocking, gripping struggle between two men in a city with one of the highest poverty levels and crime rates. While certainly more went on than what is shown in this documentary, the movie feels like a battle between good and evil. Sharpe, Newark''s longtime mayor, resorts to ruthless and absolutely sleazy tactics to disrupt his opponent''s campaign, from blatantly shutting down businesses where Booker is to speak at to refusing to allow the press to video tape him during hid speeches to using police officers as his personal security force to associating Booker with racist organizations and people. Both Sharpe and Booker are black.
The film succeeds on many levels, the first of which being that Booker, as he is portrayed here, is a meaningful, energetic and young politician who still seems to be idealistic and associates well with his constituents. Curry chronicles Booker''s ups and downs in the three or four months leading up to the election; the movie is at times uplifting and at times frustrating as hell. Whenever Booker makes an advance, Sharpe does something to shoot him down, oftentimes in the sleaziest of tactics you wouldn''t think would happen in today''s politics, at least at the mayoral level.