I'll admit upfront that I am a world-class bawl-baby and it's not hard for a movie to make me cry. I cry when I watch a movie that's depressing, uplifting, frightening, adorable, funny, or - more than anything - clearly shot from the heart and at the heart. Therefore, it should surprise no one that Fighting Tommy Riley, which was all of the above, made me sob.
The back-cover story is not what one would call original - in fact, it sounds like a rip-off of the wonderful Million Dollar Baby. Old, washed-up second-class has-been meets young, wide-eyed, unstoppable ready-to-take-on-the-world talent and together they make the perfect team, which eventually carries them both to some kind of championship. It even has all the usual heart-of-gold character twists that we know from movies like M$B - young talent is pursued by steel-hearted bigwigs but displays unwavering loyalty to trainer, trainer becomes the parent young talent never had, and eventually, unspeakable tragedy strikes. But this old, washed-up plot has found its way to a young, unstoppable talent - writer and star J.P. Davis - and he has done some beautiful things with it.
The performances of Davis and co-star Eddie Jones are electrifying. Jones's monologue (delivered by his character, Marty Goldberg, to the frank, temperamental Tommy) about why it's wrong to judge is a gem on the level of Ellen Burstyn's monologue from Requiem for a Dream. The cabin-in-the-woods scene (those who have seen the film know exactly what I'm talking about, and those who haven't are in for a cinematic treat) is also a thing of beauty, put together in just the right way to wrench at the viewer's heart. Yet the movie manages not to preach, and this in itself is a thing of wonder - when something is told from the heart, it's hard not to get on the soapbox.
This should be the point where I say that this disturbing and, at times, extremely adult movie is not for everyone, and I agree that it will probably be lost on young children. It is for everyone else. You will fall in love with these characters, and when it turns out that they aren't (are? I actually figured out what was going on early in the movie) exactly what they seem, you, like Tommy Riley, will find it very hard to abandon them.
The gentle, up-close-and-personal style of cinematography was well-deserving of this award it's already won, and Eddie O'Flaherty's direction is the work of a man who knows what he wants and how to get it. The ending is a little hokey, but not so much that it ruins what has already come.
I once heard someone say that all boxing movies are great. Excluding all of the ridiculous Rocky sequels, I have to agree with him, though I'm not sure this is so much a boxing movie as a movie about men - REAL men, not great epic-hero conquerers. As a result, you will connect with Tommy and Marty in a way you never connected with William Wallace, Maximus, and Alexander, and you won't be forgetting it soon.
Grade: A-.
The back-cover story is not what one would call original - in fact, it sounds like a rip-off of the wonderful Million Dollar Baby. Old, washed-up second-class has-been meets young, wide-eyed, unstoppable ready-to-take-on-the-world talent and together they make the perfect team, which eventually carries them both to some kind of championship. It even has all the usual heart-of-gold character twists that we know from movies like M$B - young talent is pursued by steel-hearted bigwigs but displays unwavering loyalty to trainer, trainer becomes the parent young talent never had, and eventually, unspeakable tragedy strikes. But this old, washed-up plot has found its way to a young, unstoppable talent - writer and star J.P. Davis - and he has done some beautiful things with it.
The performances of Davis and co-star Eddie Jones are electrifying. Jones's monologue (delivered by his character, Marty Goldberg, to the frank, temperamental Tommy) about why it's wrong to judge is a gem on the level of Ellen Burstyn's monologue from Requiem for a Dream. The cabin-in-the-woods scene (those who have seen the film know exactly what I'm talking about, and those who haven't are in for a cinematic treat) is also a thing of beauty, put together in just the right way to wrench at the viewer's heart. Yet the movie manages not to preach, and this in itself is a thing of wonder - when something is told from the heart, it's hard not to get on the soapbox.
This should be the point where I say that this disturbing and, at times, extremely adult movie is not for everyone, and I agree that it will probably be lost on young children. It is for everyone else. You will fall in love with these characters, and when it turns out that they aren't (are? I actually figured out what was going on early in the movie) exactly what they seem, you, like Tommy Riley, will find it very hard to abandon them.
The gentle, up-close-and-personal style of cinematography was well-deserving of this award it's already won, and Eddie O'Flaherty's direction is the work of a man who knows what he wants and how to get it. The ending is a little hokey, but not so much that it ruins what has already come.
I once heard someone say that all boxing movies are great. Excluding all of the ridiculous Rocky sequels, I have to agree with him, though I'm not sure this is so much a boxing movie as a movie about men - REAL men, not great epic-hero conquerers. As a result, you will connect with Tommy and Marty in a way you never connected with William Wallace, Maximus, and Alexander, and you won't be forgetting it soon.
Grade: A-.