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"The Education of Sonny Carson," which opened yesterday at the Penthouse and 86th Street East theaters, is a bowling brute of a film. Ridded with flaws, inexpressive as art, it shakes off its shortcomings with a primal energy that imbues it with terrifying eloquence. Based on the autobiographical account of the early years of Robert C. (Sonny) Carson, a black activist now under indictment for murder, filmed on location in the black slums of Brooklyn with a cast recruited in part from the streets, it is a work easy to fault. Episodic to the verge of incoherence, directed by Michael Campus with an eclecticism that bespeaks craftsmanship but not control, saddled with interludes of song that disrupt pacing and fail as explication, burdened with uneven portrayals and a star (Rony Clanton) whose ability to react far surpasses his ability to act, starved and simplistic in its motivations, it would seem a film beyond redemption. Certainly it fails as biography. To the very end, Sonny Carson—who goes from prize-winning school-boy essayist (Tommy Hicks portrays the young Sonny), to juvenile burglar, to war lord of a street gang, to holdup; man, to prisoner and out again—remains an enigma. Yet this film possesses very real beauty and power. It is rich with the language of the streets, lyrical in a scene that captures the glowering twilight sky above the desolate landscape of tenements, pulsating in its documentation of the tribal rhythms of the gangs, hideous in its depiction of police and prison brutality, chilling in its revelation of the devastation wreaked by heroin. Some people will find its bloodiest scene beyond endurance. "The Education of Sonny Carson" is by no means the perfect film. Beyond question it beggars every one of the black exploitation films of a year or two ago. That was one of the goals of Irwin Yablans, its producer. He wanted a film about the black experience. What he achieved derives its awesome force from what it insists on saying about the American experience. The Cast THE EDUCATION OF SONNY CARSON, directed by Michael Campus; screenplay by Fred Hudson and Mr. Campus, based on the book by Sonny Carson; director of photography, Ed Brown; music by Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson; film editors, Edward Warschilka and Harry Howard; produced by Irwin Yablans; released by Paramount Pictures. At the Penthouse Theater, Broadway and 47th Street and the 86th Street East Theater, at Third Avenue. Running time: 104 minutes. This film has been classifed R. Sonny Carson . . . . . Rony Clanton Pigliani . . . . . Don Gordon Virginia . . . . . Joyce Walker Pops . . . . . Paul Benjamin Young Sonny . . . . . Thomas Hicks Moms . . . . . Mary Alice Links: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0071456/ http://www.amazon.com/Education-Sonny-Carson-Rony-Clanton/dp/B000068TP8 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Education_of_Sonny_Carson http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/education_of_sonny_carson/ http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=950CE2D8173FEF34BC4052DFB166838F669EDE