(3.5 of 5 stars)
By and large, I try to avoid carrying a lot of preconceptions or feelings about a movie before I actually see it. I shy away from other reviewers’ words, I avert my ears from “spoilerific” trailers, and I ignore interviews. But this movie managed to snake its way past those rules for a few reasons.
First off, it’s a sports film, and sports films over the years have been able to, unlike so many other Hollywood genres, forgo the whole hit-or-miss nature of public opinion and have opted for gray. No one gets excited about sports films anymore. Audience reactions to Friday Night Lights, Radio and Invincible are generally the same, even though a few people wanted to see them. That’s frustrating for me when I try to divine public opinion because no one will get up in arms about sports films one way or another.
My other problem, at first, was Josh Hartnett, but the plus side of my preconceptions are also two-fold. The first being that it has Samuel L. Jackson, who is easily one of my favorite actors in the industry because he always picks roles he’s sure he and his fans will enjoy. The other up-side is this is a boxing sports movie, which means at its best you can get strong moments of personal honesty like those recently seen in Rocky Balboa, and at its weakest is still a bunch of honest bruisers wailing on each other.
Resurrecting The Champ follows Erik Kernan (Josh Hartnett), a Denver Times journalist exploring the life of former boxing legend Battlin’ Bob Satterfield (Samuel L. Jackson), now a homeless man who spends his nights liquored up and being wailed on by punks. The further Erik delves into the story, the more he’s forced to learn about himself as a man, as he strives to save his failing marriage and earn the respect of his kid.
Of course, I haven’t actually told you if this movie is any good, but the short truth of the matter is that it is. It always seems to dance precariously on the edge of falling into common sports movie pitfalls, but then it will introduce an interesting character or deliver an insightful line, all the while exploring the nature of man as a hero and man as man.
In these respects it’s surprisingly well-written, one example being Teri Hatcher’s cameo as a Showtime casting executive helps us understand the dark world that Erik is rapidly approaching.
As for Hartnett, before this movie, the best acting performance I’d seen him deliver was The Salesman in Sin City, and do you know why that was a perfect role for him? Because he played a heartless, machine-like man. His prior performances where he was trying to play a human being always flopped because the man is a pretty boy, and his performance is flat.
However, since his character is deeply entwined in the nature of writing, his flat reporting at the film’s outset matches his character. As the film progresses, Hartnett tries to own scenes where he breaks out and learns to express himself. It works.
Don’t expect the average gritty, yet lovable Jackson performance. His style and performance have changed drastically, and his character’s years on the street have given him a weak-willed voice akin to Dave Chappelle’s character Tyrone Biggums. I question whether or not it’s valid for Jackson to change character type so deep into his career, but it certainly is an above-average performance, in that I manage to forget he’s Jackson and not Satterfield.
In the arena of overall message, the film presses hard at the idea that the heroes we build up in our minds are only men and in fact are even more prone to mistakes and to pain than normal men because of expectation, guilt and fear. This is a high-quality sports film that people may want to give a chance, and it tries to reinvigorate the waning identity of sports films over the last several decades.
