BEFORE: Here's a quick run-down of what's coming up in the last 98 films of 2015. Boxing films, Paul Newman films, which leads into art and artist documentaries, and then a week of other documentaries, during which time my actor linking will be suspended. On the other side of that, I'm going to finally get to that second "Hobbit" film, which leads to some fantasy & animation films, then some Seth Rogen/Jonah Hill/Aubrey Plaza comedies, and some time-travel films once again. After that comes the big McConnaughey-fest, and once that's over, I really have to count my slots carefully to allow enough space for October's horror and Halloween films, then I'm off until December, when I've got a couple of winter/Christmas movies, a quick link to "Star Wars" and boom, I'm done with 2015.
What's become disheartening is that I never really seem to finish any category, any genre of films. OK, so I don't have any Westerns on my list right now - given time, I could easily come up with a few I haven't seen. Same goes with time travel - I can clear the category with the films I have in the collection now, but I don't yet have copies of "Project Almanac" or "Hot Tub Time Machine 2" - so I either have to rework the chain and move the films I do have into 2016, or proceed as planned and do some pick-up work later.
That's the way it is with boxing films, too - I've covered this topic before, with "Raging Bull", "Ali", "Million Dollar Baby", "The Hurricane", "Cinderella Man", all the "Rocky" films, "The Hammer", "The Boxer", "The Fighter", etc. And now just as I'm finally getting into a position to clear the category again, what happens? You guessed it, Hollywood releases a new boxing film, "Southpaw". It's like they're telling me that I'll never, ever, really be able to finish this project, because there will always, always be one more buddy cop thing or superhero/sci-fi film or an animated movie released that I haven't seen yet. I finally got around to watching "Mission: Impossible Ghost Protocol" a few months ago, so guess what?
Corbin Bernsen carries over from "Hello Again". The guy showed up maybe once in my first 2,000 films, and now here he is for the third time in a week. It's funny how these things work.
THE PLOT: When the champ's promoter, Rev. Sultan, decides something new is needed to boost the marketability of the boxing matches, he searches and finds the only man to ever beat the champ.
AFTER: Here's something that I don't say about a lot of movies - this one was much too short. But not necessarily in a good way - I mean that my usual complaint about a boxing film is that it doesn't usually tell me enough about the science of the sport. My main complaint about this film is that it needed more boxing in it. Really, there's just one match at the beginning to introduce us to the champion, and then there's one at the end where he faces the hand-picked white contender.
The rest is all about the other things that surround boxing, like the title-mentioned hype, the betting, the sports programs where analysts try to predict the outcome, and especially the fighter's manager and entourage, portrayed as a master manipulator and a bunch of crazy hangers-on. If the characters didn't constantly state what their jobs are ("I'm the publicist!" and "I own the casino!") then we might not ever know what they're supposed to be doing it, because they're rarely seen accomplishing those things. Instead they sit around and try to brainstorm ways to game the system to increase the fight's revenue.
Now, I'm not saying this doesn't happen. Maybe that's what boxing managers do, just spend their time thinking of ways to create rivalries in order to get more people to order pay-per-view matches. Maybe the Rev. Fred Sultan is based on a real-life figure who some people have suggested had the entire Nevada boxing commission and the heads of several boxing organizations on his payroll, either in reality or in spirit. Maybe it's possible to track down an obscure fighter, grease some palms, and get him ranked in the Top 10 just to give him an unreal shot at a real title. But I'll never know for sure, and since the whole crazy situation is played for crazy laughs here, we'll never know. If you're going to do an exposé, do a damn exposé.
But maybe this is intended as a parody of boxing films? Again, tone is everything, so if I can't grok the intent from a film's tone, then I can't really tell what message it's trying to send or what point it's trying to make. Are boxing managers corrupt? Yeah, probably. And I hear water is also wet. Can anyone make sense out of which fighters get ranked where, or who gets to fight who? I'm not sure, but I'd like to know more about it. This film can't stop patting itself on the back over how hilarious it thinks it is in order to get anything across, though.
Almost a NITPICK POINT: My limited understanding of boxing's weight classes led me to believe that a boxer usually has to "make weight" for a fight, meaning that his weight has to fall within a specific range (flyweight, bantamweight, featherweight, welterweight - do we need this many distinctions?) and it's played for laughs here that the world champion has a prominent pot belly. I figured that if a fighter didn't get down to his "fighting weight", that he wouldn't be able to fight. Which is true, except for the heavyweight class, which I've just learned has no upper limit. OK, good to know.
But I think the movie sells itself short (and most boxing fans as well) by suggesting that more people will watch a boxing match between a black man and a white man because of some deep racism that's still to be found in sports fans. Basing the whole plot of a film around this seems inherently racist itself, and I don't know how to get past that. And we'll never get past it as a society until people stop looking at situations that way, so why feature characters who continue to do so?
Also starring Samuel L. Jackson (last seen in "Avengers: Age of Ultron"), Damon Wayans (last seen in "The Last Boy Scout"), Jeff Goldblum (last seen in "The Grand Budapest Hotel"), Peter Berg (last seen in "The Greatest Movie Ever Sold"), Jon Lovitz (last seen in "Grown Ups 2"), Cheech Marin (last seen in "Tin Cup"), Jamie Foxx (last seen in "A Million Ways to Die in the West"), John Rhys-Davies (last seen in "The Living Daylights"), Albert Hall, Rocky Carroll, Salli Richardson-Whitfield, with cameos from Brian Setzer, Method Man, Chi McBride.
RATING: 3 out of 10 Rolls-Royces
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