Cousin Bobby (1992)

Like the fiery Harlem minister it profiles, this documentary is both uplifting and angry, and it is rendered more intriguing by the fact that the clergyman happens to be Jonathan Demme's long-lost cousin. The director of The Silence of the Lambs and Married to the Mob gets personal here, overlaying scenes of the Reverend Robert Castle's ecumenical neighborhood crusade with Demme's own family portrait. While Cousin Bobby rails against the ''genocide'' perpetrated by ''the rest of them downtown,'' it reveals, in Demme as well as his cousin, a gentleness of spirit that leaves room for hope. B+