A movie about how to manage your career as a boxer.

Rating: 4/10 (6 December 2012)

I watched this movie in the hopes that it would be inspirational in giving the message of "hard work pays off", or "losers can be winners" or something along those lines.
Watching this movie did not convey that message at all. Instead, this was a movie about the intricacies of managing your own career. Dicky (lead character's brother) is Micky's coach, and Alice Ward (Micky's mother) is his manager. Throw in some shenanigan about Micky being offered an opportunity by some random guy to make it big, and it's a movie about family dynamics, and whether or not to betray loyalty to family for career progression. Throw in the mandatory boxing and training scenes, and boom! You've got your movie.
Things I did like about this movie: - The acting was very believable, and the sense of loss is extremely palpable, in addition to the sense of anger and tension before the fights. - The boxing scenes really build up the excitement and atmosphere, although some of the fights are incredibly unbelievable (6 rounds of Micky getting pounded, and a "head-body-head-body" combo knocks the opponent out? For real????)
However, there are several things I felt that this movie completely falls short on.
The family dynamics is terribly done, with the result being something really confusing. Micky ends up pissing off both Micky, and the new trainer by refusing to train with Dicky, yet adopting his fighting technique in his fight. I don't see why Micky would adopt his brother's technique when it was never proved if it was effective, and when many of his fights under his brother's guidance were a loss. Yet, he does this under his new trainer (the police officer with glasses (I don't know his name)). Throw in the shouting of profanities, the skanks, whore, slut blah blah with Micky and his girlfriend and his family.
I also don't see why any boxing manager would approach the loser to offer paid training. It doesn't really make sense, with the reason being "you've got heart".
The romance was too fake as well. I mean, Micky being in the worse mood ever after losing, falling asleep in the cinema, hardly even talking to Charlene, and they start kissing? My prediction is that Charlene has a fetish for guys who are in foul moods. I thought she'd dump him.
Overall, I felt that this movie didn't really give a solid movie about becoming the best, or the underdog movie. It just gave a film about how best to manage your career as a boxer.