Resurrecting the Champ

Resurrecting the Champ is a hit or miss drama that works well in its more scathing, hard-edged moments of cutthroat journalism and athletics but falters under the weight of sappy melodrama pertaining to failed marriages and disappointed sons. Josh Hartnett stars as Erik Kernan Jr., an unsatisfied sports writer for The Denver Times whose father was a legendary broadcaster. He wants to make a play at major success instead of simply covering low priority boxing matches and being repeatedly buried under the looming shadow of his beloved father. When he meets a homeless man, played by Samuel L. Jackson, in an alley one fateful night calling himself “The Champ” and identifying himself as boxing icon Bob Satterfield, he thinks he’s found his big break. He’s going to right the story of how Satterfield fell from greatness, resulting in his current disoriented, unfortunate mental and physical condition. More importantly, he’s not going to turn it in to his disapproving boss but instead try to sell it to a more lucrative publication.

What follows is a sometimes sharp but often mundane telling of how Kernan and Champ bond over time. The moments between Hartnett and Jackson usually work very well and the blatant duplicity of Kernan in exploiting Champ and backstabbing his employers makes him a more believably ruthless protagonist. In those darker moments, the film finds life. Where it dies is in the weepy, unconvincing moments in which Kernan must deal with his rocky marriage and his quest to be a better father to his son than his dad was to him. These dalliances, which might have served the film well had they been fine tuned, feel like clear momentum killers in the film. Just as the movie hits a nice stride, it dabbles in Kernan’s home life, and suddenly it’s off key once again.

What’s worth your time is Samuel L. Jackson who gives a really amazing performance as the good-hearted, thick-skinned Champ. Whether or not he proves to be a bread winner for Erik, he’s still a fascinating character with a story that eclipses all of the movie’s tedious subplots. It’s not all good, but the parts of the film that work (mostly the material centering on Jackson) are very solid. As it reaches its end, it’s posing questions about the damages of boxing, the corruption of journalism, and the impossibly unmarketable truth to both these things. It culminates in an unexpectedly dramatic monologue by Teri Hatcher as a fast-talking Showtime executive looking to hire Kernan for their boxing coverage in which she bluntly informs him “Nobody wants the truth.” Sadly, the film carries on beyond that moment for far too long and renders itself numbingly dull. It’s not a terrible movie, just one that didn’t quite come together in the end.

Grade: C+