Reproduced here in full with permission from the author LillyKat.
Read part 1 of LillyKat’s report HERE.
By LillyKat
PTR Staff Writer
What do you get when you cross a less-than-average sports writer desperately looking for his title shot at sports writing greatness with a homeless guy who happens to be a former heavyweight boxing champ?
A Pulitzer Prize winning story.
Or is it?
Welcome to Resurrecting the Champ.
As regular readers of this blog know, I had the opportunity to attend a screening of this film (followed thereafter with a Q&A with director Rod Lurie, actress and co-star Kathryn Morris, producer Mike Medavoy of Phoenix Pictures and Bob Yari of Yari Films). Part 1 of my report was an exclusive with Kathryn as to her role in the film (recapped here). This week, we get to reviewing the film.
Quite often, real life is more interesting than fiction. This proves true when watching a movie that is based on something that actually happened. (And, I’m not talking about the “Based on a True Story” marketing deception trick that some filmmakers use to fool the audience into thinking that what they are seeing on screen is a line by line account of something when, in actual fact, only one thing in the film is true and everything else is creative license. No, I’m talking about the real “Based on a True Story”-inspired films with no marketing deception trick needed). I tend to favor these stories because they bring a different level of believability to the characters – their struggles, their conflicts, their triumphs. It’s a testament to the human spirit (which sometimes one just cannot come up with on one’s own, no matter how good of a writer one is). There really is something to knowing the story happened to someone, somewhere, somehow.
Resurrecting the Champ (directed by Lurie from a screenplay by Michael Bortman and Allison Burnett) is based on the true life tale of Los Angeles Times writer J.R. Moehringer’s May 1997 story, “Resurrecting the Champ,” which focused on a former professional boxer left homeless and living on the street. Moehringer’s story also delved into his own personal relationship with the boxer, as well as his dealings with his father (who left his family when he was just a baby).
In the film, Josh Hartnett stars as Denver Times sports writer Erik Kernan. Living in the shadow of his famous sports writer father, Erik does not have quite the same writing chops as ol’ dad. Although he was good at one time, he’s lost a bit of his touch, run out of ideas and fallen out of favor with his editor (played by the always superb Alan Alda).
As Erik struggles to live up to his father’s reputation, he is also desperately trying to be a good father to his own young son, Teddy (played beautifully by young actor Dakota Goyo) whilst also trying to save his marriage to the more sophisticated, accomplished and well-respected journalist, Joyce (played by PTR favorite Kathryn Morris). It is something of a rarity in Hollywood to have the woman as the older, wiser and more accomplished partner – a refreshing reversal of fortune on the overdone older man/younger woman routine. As Morris told us here at PTR last week:
“There are so many movies out there where the wife is nagging, not supportive, and you don’t often see a story where one – she – is truly the better half trying to make the other half better. I liked that [Joyce was] not a paint by numbers wife …. [In this film], she let her husband go on his own journey, and let [him] become the man he needed to become.”
Just when things seem as if they are never going to turn around for Erik, he has an unexpected run-in with Champ, played by Samuel L. Jackson. Homeless, out on the street and not much left to his name, he clings to being known as Battlin’ Bob Satterfield – “Number 3 in the world!” back in the 1950s. By all accounts, Satterfield is supposedly dead, or at the very least, dropped off the face of the boxing landscape ages ago.
Enter Erik’s own title shot, as he calls it, to tell Champ’s story, resurrect him from oblivion, and grant Champ the opportunity to get part of his life back – not to mention his own. But all is not what it appears, and Erik soon finds himself in an even greater struggle than saving his career and his marriage: saving himself from himself.
“A writer, like a boxer, must stand alone.”
And get the right story for the right reasons.
This film is a gem. One of the increasing number of gems brought to us by the Yari Film Group, who have earned the reputation of being willing to make the quality independent films for which every other major studio says, “No, thanks.”
Their loss.
Crash anyone?
Refreshingly, Champ doesn’t have the hoopla of summer blockbusterness nor the requirement to dumb oneself down to laugh at stupid teenage boys being stupid teenage-boys. It’s truly a quality piece of storytelling, with an excellent cast of actors and great filmmaking.
Jackson is almost unrecognizable as Champ. Snakes on a Plane and Pulp Fiction this is not. He portrays Champ with a range of subtle and tempered emotion that we do not often get to see in his films. Hartnett is equally as good as a young guy just trying to do the right thing – for his boss, for his wife, for his kid, for himself. Morris is quality through and through, and it’s a wonderful change of pace to see her step out of the confines of her role as Detective Lilly Rush on Cold Case. Even though the story really does focus on Jackson’s Champ and Hartnett’s Erik, Morris’ Joyce is key to the film as its moral center, its balance.
Alan Alda is … well, Alan Alda. Is there anyone better? A true actor’s actor, Alda is sharp, engaging, carries the role of a hardened newspaper editor with ease. I could watch him for hours saying one line over and over and never get bored. And Dakota Goyo is … Too. Darn. Cute. It’s been a while since I’ve been so impressed by a young child actor, but this little guy is a great find. His scenes with Hartnett are priceless, and he has a wholesomeness that is almost heartbreaking to watch once he realizes dad may not be all that he thinks he is.
In listening to the filmmakers discuss their roles in the process of getting this film made (which took almost 10 years to bring to the big screen), producer Mike Medavoy perhaps said it best: “It’s not our job to tell directors how to run a movie [or] cut a movie.”
As a result, you get the story told as the story should be told.
For the right reasons.
Resurrecting the Champ opens August 24th [2007]. Visit the official Web site.
See this article in its original form on the Pass The Remote website HERE.
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