an excuse for the director to train as a boxer

Rating: 5/10 (21 September 2015)

There was a lot of hype around this movie, I had big expectations, perhaps that's why the movie was mediocre at best, the trailer already did something which is becoming more and more common place nowadays which is give away most of the story. We see a boxers wife get shot, daughter taken away. It's easy to guess this is going to motivate him to train again and end with a big fight. How is this for a boxing movie ending, don't end with a fight?
We never learn the details around his wife's murder, I thought it had something to do with 50 cents character whom not much attention was given to and probably should have been the main villain of the story, not the Colombian boxer. Small things like having a funeral scene right after the morning of murder seems as if they buried her the next day. The daughter doesn't seem to care much about her dead mother. We don't see her cry.
Maybe if he and his wife weren't orphans and were already rich from birth and then had to lose everything it could of made more sense or the character would of had a bigger ark or something. If not his wife at least he could have always been wealthy and such. Billy Hope's friend and crew don't get any exposition, why the beat up car if he's working for the World champ boxer.
Overall movie was a bit too hyped and the story fell short in depth and was just a simple boxing movie where a guy has it all, then loses it and has to learn what important to him and work hard to get it back. Typical, nothing special. Good acting and score however.