I just finish watching "The Boxer" and this movie had a lot of potential but being a "white collar" boxer myself, I just couldn't help noticing the mistakes they kept making in the film. The Movies starts of about a young man who just got out of prison and wants to start a new life. Now usually when a prisoner gets out of jail, they set him up with some info like where to stay like a boarding house or shelter, and usually the prisoner may have a few bucks put away from working in the jail. The guy on his first day out starts sleeping in Skid Row?! The young man starts to try to contact his mother via a phone call but she wants no part of him, which of course builds up the curiosity. The "Ben" character tries to find work but to no avail until he finds a "cleaner wanted" sign on a boxing gym door. Ben character goes into gym to inquire about job and meets the Gym Owner/Trainter character played by Great Veteran Actor Stacy Keetch. Mr. Keetch does a OK job explaining the old line of "boxing is 90% mental, 10% physical" quote. You can probably guess that they would execute that movie formula of "teacher never likes student at first but warms up to him" scenario. Eventually after much resistance from Ben not to learn to box, he caves in and takes lessons from the Keetch character. Now this is where the "hollywood magic" gets a bit hokey. The guy fights like 3 fights, and somehow Stacey gets him in a Light Heavyweight title match eliminator? In the "Real" world, he would have to get at least some amateur fights in, plus at least 20 or some professional fights to at least get in the position. But the director seems to want to rush the movie, that might work in CSI but not in boxing. By the way, there's a "bad guy" in this movie as well played very well by O'Shea Miles even though his boxing style didn't look very professional but he made up for it by his bad attitude. Oh, there's also a love interest (like always) and shes happens to be the girlfriend of ..guess what?...The bad guy! I don't want to give away to much on this movie, but I believe that even though boxing is considered the "poor mans" sport, doesn't mean it should get poor scripting. This could have work with better writing, more realistic buildup of the fighters skills and career. This was a poor, poor man's version of "Million Dollar Baby". shame.
