The boxing genre has produced many great movies to be sure, usually great because while boxing is the center of the plotting, these are movies about people of immense character. No exception here,
but even more so. The variety of characters is amazing too. It has it's brutal moments, as you would expect in a film set in prison, but the overwhelming thing I was left with is that this is a movie about the possibility for redeeming love and gentleness and supreme transcendent loyalty in the most adverse conditions. The fact that it is based on a genuine story, with the two principals showing up in cameo surely adds to the interest.
It's a very unusual sort of story because of its extremity in all ways, and the noble and proper choices people can make under enormous pressures. A movie, I suppose, must be categorized, and this one seems slotted as a boxing biopic, but I suppose its a many layered sort of love story. It could be called a prison movie, or a romance, or a topical picture about transgender relations, or a film about inter racial brotherhood, and it all works ,like a great stew. You need a great script to handle so many elements, and terrific acting from a lot of actors to pull this off, and that is just what has happened. It is a very life-affirming movie, and realizing that it is absolutely true
to actual events, authentic, as shown in the final credits and as a cursory internet search reveals, gives it that much more power. Highly recommended.
Review of The Hammer
