.: Roberts' Reviews - Movie Reviews :.

Boxing is one of the few sports that has transcended well onto the big screen. Raging Bull, Rocky I & II and even 1992's more comedic effort Diggstown each offered an exciting and or interesting look at the corrupt, gruesome and barbaric sport of boxing. Even less accomplished films like The Great White Hype and Michael Mann's Ali are still better than the Major League's, Slap Shots or Victory's that other sports have produced on film. With nary a misstep, you could get the impression that boxing movies were a failsafe option.

That was until now.

New to DVD this week is Against the Ropes, a boxing film that is yet another vehicle to re-invent and re-energize Meg Ryan's persona. This stab has Meg playing Jackie Kallen, a true-to-life famous boxing promoter that used her skills and sex appeal to puncture the male dominated sports arena. Stuck as an executive assistant, Jackie stands up to the vile boxing promoter LaRocca (Tony Shalhoub) and ends up buying a boxers contract for the bargain basement price of a dollar. Upon attempting to contact her new acquisition, Jackie is introduced to Luthur Shaw (Omar Epps) who bursts on to the scene to rough up a few drug users in the rundown apartment complex. Seeing talent in the way Shaw handled himself, Jackie bails him out of jail and offers him a chance to box professionally, which he reluctantly accepts after her persistent aggression.

With a boxer now under her wings, Jackie pursues retired trainer Felix Reynolds (Charles S. Dutton) to chisel off the rough edges and make Shaw the boxer we all know he will end up before we see the first credit at the ass end of the film.

But things can't be that smooth for Ms. Kallen or they wouldn't have optioned the story for a movie, and obstacles come in the form of LaRocca's influence on the sport and how he is able to keep Jackie's fighter to insignificant, under-card fights. Jackie's fights with other venues and boxing promoters to circumvent LaRocca's unfair decision gets the royal treatment by the sports media and soon her head gets bigger than most boxing purse payouts. This would then lead to the anxiety on behalf of Shaw and his eventual run to LaRocca for the respect, money and limelight he thinks he is entitled.

Directed by Charles S. Dutton (there's that name again), Against the Ropes is a misfired attempt at what was probably a Seabiscuit type story of a female breaking in ranks with the big guys. But as the movie plods along with some unnecessary and almost laughable accents by Shalhoub and Ryan, we find that we don't care about the characters, can see things scenes before they unfold and we are reminded that boxing can sometimes be more of a who you know rather than what you can do kind of experience.

Maybe most notable was the effort by Ryan who with last years In The Cut and now with Against the Ropes is trying to have everyone forget that she has dimples and is nothing if not for the actors to which she is surrounded (and with all due respect to Omar Epps, you are no Tom Hanks). Where Julia Roberts was a little more effortless in her brazen role as Erin Brockovich, Ryan seems to be trying to hard to re-invent herself. Her swagger was probably a mock of the real Kallen's walk, but coupled with the heavy deep-throated voice, it just doesn't play out as natural enough and is therefore more distracting than believable.

Also noted are how each of the characters offered nothing new to those viewers that either watch boxing as a spectator sport or who have enjoyed boxing films in the past. There is the out-for-myself promoter (Shalhoub), the reporter who is always on the side of the good guys (Tim Daly), the trainer you know will get his fighter in shape in record time..etc., etc., etc., ..

So with all this going against it, I recognize that this is a boxing movie and I had hoped that the boxing sequences are exciting enough to keep us on the edge of our seats and forget all that leads up to them. Nope. Against the Ropes fails there too. The boxing sequences seem amateurish in how they were shot and orchestrated. Gone are the smashing sound effects of body blows and jabs that made Rocky such a smack to the senses. Instead, they are replaced with phantom punches and screen shots from the cheap seats of a large arena.

Too easy a cliché to pass up, Against the Ropes is no TKO. Instead, I felt like the experience was a draw put in the hands of corrupt judges and this judge gives it a thumbs down.