February 20, 2004 | Imagine a cross
between Rocky and Erin
Brockovich – yes, I know that's difficult, but try anyway – and
you may be ready to go the distance with Against the Ropes ,
a lightweight comedy-drama about a feisty female manager who gate-crashes
into the boy's club of professional boxing.
Although “inspired” by the real-world exploits of Jackie Kallen, a sassy,
brassy sportswriter who broke rules and ruffled feathers when she started
managing prizefighters in the late 1980s, the movie plays like formulaic
feel-good fiction. From the opening round to the closing clinch, events
unfold in a mildly amusing but thoroughly predictable manner. And despite
their best efforts to turn their true-life tale into a rousing saga of
uplift and empowerment, the filmmakers – screenwriter Cheryl Edwards
( Save the Last Dance ), actor-turned-director Charles S. Dutton
-- rarely are able to score dramatic upsets or emotional knockouts.
Edwards and Dutton re-imagine Jackie as
a leggy thirtysomething secretary with a fondness for clingy clothing,
a passion for the sweet science – and
all the spunk we've come to expect from lead characters in star vehicles
hand-tooled for Meg Ryan.
We first see our heroine as an unappreciated dynamo who's humiliated
on a daily basis while working as secretary to Irving Abel (Joe Cortese),
director of the Cleveland Coliseum. The daughter of a trainer, Jackie
knows more about boxing than her boorish boss, who takes all the credit
for her behind-the-scenes work. And she has a sharper eye for raw talent
than Sam LaRocca (Tony Shalhoub), a bullying promoter with a whim of
iron. Neither man takes Jackie seriously until she joins forces with
a veteran trainer (Dutton, doing double duty) to transform Luther Shaw
(well-cast Omar Epps), a drug dealer's enforcer, into a middleweight
contender.
Ryan has trouble with her tricky working-class
accent, which comes and goes before leaving altogether. And she's sporadically
laugh-out-loud silly while flouncing around in revealing outfits that
look like Erin Brokovich's hand-me-downs. Overall, however, she is
genuinely engaging as the determined Jackie, and only occasionally
relies on her trademark smiley-weepy shtick to warm our hearts. She
even manages to sustain a rooting interest in her character after Jackie
turns vain and ruthless – prior
to a third-act redemption, of course -- while single-mindedly pursuing
her dream.