Resurrecting The Champ
does this boxing flick go the distance?
2007-08-24
By Sergio A. Mims

CAST:
Samuel L. Jackson, Josh Hartnett, Kathryn Morris
Dakota Goyo, Teri Hatcher, Alan Alda, Harry J. Lennix

This is a film that clearly has its heart in the right place. It desperately wants to be a film of heartfelt emotions and
poignant truths about  fathers and sons and the emotionally complex dynamic between them, their expectations and their inevitable disappointments. Yet, despite the excellent acting and several effective scenes, Champ eventually begins to fall apart and becomes something less than what it tries so hard to be.

Based on a widely reported and well chronicled true story (though for some unexplained reason the names of all characters are changed and the locale unaccountably switched from Los Angeles to Denver), Champ focuses on Erik Kernan (Hartnett), an up-and-coming young sports writer for the Denver Times. Separated from his wife (Morris), trying to be a good father for his son (Goyo) and at odds with his editor (Alda) for turning in sub-par work, Kernan has a chance encounter one night with a punch drunk, homeless man “Battling” Bob Satterfield (Jackson) who turns out to be a half forgotten boxer who, long before, almost became a world champion.

Seizing on the opportunity to turn around his position at the paper, Kernan begins a friendship with Satterfield with the intention of writing a major cover story for the paper’s  Sunday magazine. Once the article comes out Kernan becomes a golden boy, fielding offers, accepting a job as a cable TV boxing analyst and becoming a hero again in the eyes of his wife and son. Of course, it’s inevitable that it doesn’t last when a secret is revealed about Satterfield that threatens to bring Kernan’s fantastic new life crashing down around him.

Champ is filled to the brim with pensive, thoughtful moments yet it still struggles mightily to be a film of substance. Hartnett, who in previous films has been an uncharismatic black hole, is good as Kernan, showing a surprising range of emotion. Jackson drops the angry black man shtick he’s perfected for his recent spate of where’s-the-big-paycheck roles. His shuffling, broken-down-remains-of-a-man portrayal is some of the most nuanced work he’s done in years and makes Satterfield a sympathetic character.

Though this is the best work so far by former film critic turned director Rod Lurie (The Contender, The Last Castle), in the end that isn’t saying much. Unfortunately, once the plot twist is revealed (obvious within the first 20 minutes to anyone with a basic rudimentary knowledge of movies), the film has nowhere to go except for repeated scenes of Hartnett being distraught and worried, one too many speeches about living up to your children’s expectations and what the truth means. The result is that the film begins to badly bog down in the last third of the movie and gets annoyingly repetitive.

The chronology of the film is also strangely out of whack. Though the film takes place in the present or in the very recent past, there are several flashbacks of Satterfield’s boxing career that take place during the early 1950’s, which would logically make Jackson  at least 30 years older than he is in the film. Perhaps even worse is the illogical resolution of Kernan’s desperate situation courtesy of Harry Lennix in a cameo appearance as Satterfield’s son.

In the end, what one is left with is a disappointing film which, despite landing the occasionally solid punch, stumbles badly in the final round, leaving the viewer wishing for the contender Resurrecting The Champ could have been.

Sergio Mims writes about film and film culture for ebonyjet.com