Fighting Intents

Rating: Null/10 (1 November 2006)

Here's an interesting situation. Evil versus good, or if you prefer: a life of the purehearted versus that of the thuggish.
Yes, its the story, but its also the form of the movie itself.
The blunt, the stupid, the ugly is the movie itself. Howard and Grazier are so pedestrian it makes me cry. There isn't a shred of sophistication, elaboration or depth in this. Its one arc, unimpeded and unarticulated. Good man, Hard times, Comeback. The only slight elaboration is the worried-wife-as-watcher. Compare this to the richly woven "Seabiscuit," essentially the same story but with all sorts of parallel threads and reflections.
These two guys Howard and Grazier are the enemy of life with their industrial storytelling, their plywood narrative. It makes it all the worse that they have achieved a glossy style that looks competent, if you think manufactured cookies with artificial ingredients are competent. Zellweger is not a fine actress, so she goes with the manufactured sweep of the thing.
The good which opposes it. Say what you will about Crowe's strutting, the man is an Australian actor and there's no escaping that. Even when told to be simple, and even in spite of his own imperfect and unformed soul, he just cannot avoid some depth, some parallel being  a reality under the cartoon.
And also on the good side is the simple fact of boxing. Now boxing is brutal. And perhaps most people involved in it are simple. But they are real, and that's all the difference. And it is a real sport, perhaps the only real one. No complex rules and balls. No question of goals or finish lines, just a straightforward matter of the ability to give and take. Its genuine, and I'm sure that's why it was selected, to counter the cartoon limits of what the filmmaker could handle. And since Scorsece mapped the ring and Stallone in vented the slomo flying sweat, its been cinematic as well.
So Its unintuitive that somethings that seem thuggish: Crowe and boxing, are the real things here, the pure and the good. And the bad, the evil, the thuggish; why they are our men behind the camera who make money from simplifying it for the goobs on the street.
Who will win this fight, do you suppose?
Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements.