Forced clichés and unrealistic scenario
Here you have it, I described the hole movie on the title. This movie is unbelievable bad. We watched it yesterday and we literally couldn't believe how could they messed so bad.
The movie attempts to include as much clichés as possible, but this is not the real issue. The real issue is that the clichés are really forced into the script and presented totally unrealistic. Let's examine:
1. The boxer (Hope) is hyper-aggressive. OK so this boxer is the top dog with 40+ victories but he never learned to block....
2. His wife gets murdered and no one is blamed. This part is where the story really goes downhill! Hope and his wife were on a philanthropic event inside a casino. The arch enemy of the boxer after the event start to talk smack about the boxer's wife and they start to fight. So far so good. Out of nowhere someone of the arch-enemy's bodyguards draws a gun and accidentally kills the Hope's wife. WTF, how is even possible to have a gun inside a casino? And why he draw a gun? To shoot the protagonist? Inside the casino? With people watching? And why shoot him, wasn't the whole plan of the antagonist to start this fist fight?
Then the woman dies on the floor and nobody does anything to catch the killer! No one of the hundreds of attendees saw anything! And the protagonist don't even try during the rest of the movie to bring the killer to justice. The directors wanted a dead wife to build a sad story but they made no attempt to design a realistic death or a realistic aftermath of the murder.
3. The ultra successful boxer after his wife death loses one fight and punches the referee. This incident is enough from turning him from super rich living to a huge mansion with a collection of luxury cars to completely financially broke. WTF? This forced misery in order to build an arch is so laughably unrealistic!
4. Hope crashes his car on a tree on purpose and his kid is immediately removed from his custody. Why? He didn't harm any one else but himself and the car. He crashed inside his garden so he caused no threat to anyone else for crying out loud! The kid that until that point loved her father and cried her eyes out when the jury decided to separate her from him, after one week away from the father, now hates him!.... Is this a parody, because if it is, well done!? The only justification from the kid's hate towards the protagonist is a line of the kid's therapist: "not everything revolves around you, you should respect her emotions"
5. Latter on a young boy boxer (Hoppy) dies in a tragic family incident and the protagonist with his trainer soak to tears. Another forced cliché in a pathetic attempt to make the viewer feel sad. Hoppy before his death had a total of 1 minute on-screen time and there was no build up to his death, just a quick "I heard there were some fighting between his mom and dad". No one was invested on the kids life so seeing the protagonist and the trainer cry didn't do anything emotionally to the viewer. In my opinion this sub-plot should have been completely removed. If you don't have time and interest to build a decent sub-plot, don't include it on the movie. It just looks like a cheap attempt to make the viewer feel sad.
OK let's move on and talk about the antagonist (Miguel). Same pattern here, rushed and forced. We are introduced to the antagonist at the start of the movie where Miguel start taking smack to Hope during a press conference. The antagonist just stands on the crowd and asks for a "real" match between him and the protagonist. When we saw this part of the film, no one knew who this is, he might as well be a drunk who managed to pass security. Why the protagonist was upset after-wards? Nobody knew.... In fact there is no descent explanation of the hate between these 2 characters. Also throughout the film Miguel is just there to serve as an arch-enemy. No character build up, no back story, nothing.
All this points are show stoppers so there is no need to talk about anything else about this movie. My three star rating is for Forest Whitaker (the trainer) who tried inside this mess of a movie to give a solid performance.
One last thing, at the end Hope wins with an unexpected move, Karate Kid anyone?!
Here you have it, I described the hole movie on the title. This movie is unbelievable bad. We watched it yesterday and we literally couldn't believe how could they messed so bad.
The movie attempts to include as much clichés as possible, but this is not the real issue. The real issue is that the clichés are really forced into the script and presented totally unrealistic. Let's examine:
1. The boxer (Hope) is hyper-aggressive. OK so this boxer is the top dog with 40+ victories but he never learned to block....
2. His wife gets murdered and no one is blamed. This part is where the story really goes downhill! Hope and his wife were on a philanthropic event inside a casino. The arch enemy of the boxer after the event start to talk smack about the boxer's wife and they start to fight. So far so good. Out of nowhere someone of the arch-enemy's bodyguards draws a gun and accidentally kills the Hope's wife. WTF, how is even possible to have a gun inside a casino? And why he draw a gun? To shoot the protagonist? Inside the casino? With people watching? And why shoot him, wasn't the whole plan of the antagonist to start this fist fight?
Then the woman dies on the floor and nobody does anything to catch the killer! No one of the hundreds of attendees saw anything! And the protagonist don't even try during the rest of the movie to bring the killer to justice. The directors wanted a dead wife to build a sad story but they made no attempt to design a realistic death or a realistic aftermath of the murder.
3. The ultra successful boxer after his wife death loses one fight and punches the referee. This incident is enough from turning him from super rich living to a huge mansion with a collection of luxury cars to completely financially broke. WTF? This forced misery in order to build an arch is so laughably unrealistic!
4. Hope crashes his car on a tree on purpose and his kid is immediately removed from his custody. Why? He didn't harm any one else but himself and the car. He crashed inside his garden so he caused no threat to anyone else for crying out loud! The kid that until that point loved her father and cried her eyes out when the jury decided to separate her from him, after one week away from the father, now hates him!.... Is this a parody, because if it is, well done!? The only justification from the kid's hate towards the protagonist is a line of the kid's therapist: "not everything revolves around you, you should respect her emotions"
5. Latter on a young boy boxer (Hoppy) dies in a tragic family incident and the protagonist with his trainer soak to tears. Another forced cliché in a pathetic attempt to make the viewer feel sad. Hoppy before his death had a total of 1 minute on-screen time and there was no build up to his death, just a quick "I heard there were some fighting between his mom and dad". No one was invested on the kids life so seeing the protagonist and the trainer cry didn't do anything emotionally to the viewer. In my opinion this sub-plot should have been completely removed. If you don't have time and interest to build a decent sub-plot, don't include it on the movie. It just looks like a cheap attempt to make the viewer feel sad.
OK let's move on and talk about the antagonist (Miguel). Same pattern here, rushed and forced. We are introduced to the antagonist at the start of the movie where Miguel start taking smack to Hope during a press conference. The antagonist just stands on the crowd and asks for a "real" match between him and the protagonist. When we saw this part of the film, no one knew who this is, he might as well be a drunk who managed to pass security. Why the protagonist was upset after-wards? Nobody knew.... In fact there is no descent explanation of the hate between these 2 characters. Also throughout the film Miguel is just there to serve as an arch-enemy. No character build up, no back story, nothing.
All this points are show stoppers so there is no need to talk about anything else about this movie. My three star rating is for Forest Whitaker (the trainer) who tried inside this mess of a movie to give a solid performance.
One last thing, at the end Hope wins with an unexpected move, Karate Kid anyone?!