Against the Ropes

Starring: Meg Ryan, Omar Epps, Tony Shalhoub, Charles S. Dutton, Tim Daly
Directed by: Charles S. Dutton
Rating: PG-13
Genre: Biography, Drama, Sports
Box Office: $5,884,190
2004

Times Seen:
Tim: 1

Summary: Jackie Kallen (Meg Ryan) breaks into the sport of boxing as a promoter and is determined to take a wild young boxer (Omar Epps) to the top, despite obstacles she faces because she is a woman. However, with success comes new problems, and these threaten to destroy her and her fighter.

Review:

Tim: This is far less a boxing movie than a vehicle for Meg Ryan to play a (fascinating) real life person. This movie is really about two things- 1. Allowing Meg Ryan to prance around in short skirts and look stunning. 2. Ryan doing her best to play Jackie Kallen. It is great to see Ryan playing tough person. We haven't seen this since Courage Under Fire and it is a good change of pace from her soft, typical romantic comedy roles.

This is a surprisingly decent yet safe film. It received bad reviews and few people went to see it, but it is far better than you would expect from listening to people talk about how bad it is.

You can see a few Rocky moments when the film tries (and fails) to be like that classic. It falls far, far short from any of Rocky's greatness.

Omar Epps at times over acts and doesn't quite look like a boxer. He redeems himself with the more emotional scenes with Ryan. It should be noted that he boxed every scene, which is pretty amazing.

Tony Shalhoub is egotistical, mean, and easy to hate. This is quite different from his usual roles. It is nice to see him expanding himself a bit as an actor.

Against the Ropes is actually a pretty good biographical pic. It does a good job showing not only the impressive highlights of Kallen's career, but also the downside and less admirable moments. It is a good bio flick, but a mediocre boxing one.



Rating 1-10
Tim's Rating- 6.5



If You Enjoyed This Movie, We Recommend: Courage Under Fire, Love and Basketball, When Harry Met Sally..., Rocky, Raging Bull