Against the Ropes

Review By: Willa Paskin
WillaPaskin@TheCinemaSource.com

Against The Ropes is for Meg Ryan what Erin Brockovich was for Julia Roberts; that is, if Erin Brockovich had been a bad movie. In both films these two American female movie stars most beloved for being sweet, yet plucky, take on roles inspired by real woman who are decidedly less nice and wholesome than their usual on screen personas. Both Erin Brockovich and Jackie Kallen, the boxing manager who inspired Against The Ropes, are smart, underestimated, ballsy, aggressive women with extremely tacky clothing. The difference between the two performances is that Roberts manages to retain her inherent likeability - that smile, that verve -, but Ryan unfortunately doesn’t.

The first mistake with Ryan’s performance is her accent. It’s flat, nasal, and completely inhibits Ryan’s ability to be charming. Her cutesy ways may be something the actress is trying to move away from (her recent In the Cut is further evidence), but in a film that is entirely dependent upon the audiences’ ability to enjoy Kallen, likeability doesn’t seem like something worth sacrificing, especially if it could be retained by just deciding to let Ryan sound like herself. In a sense it’s a compliment to Meg as an actress that she was able to so completely jettison her usual charm; on the other, the film suffers for a lack of charm, usual or otherwise.

Ryan plays Jackie Kallen, the most successful female boxing manager in history (not that she has much competition). When we meet up with Jackie, she’s an underappreciated, disillusioned secretary for a man who runs Cleveland’s boxing arena. She only sticks around because she gets to see the fights. This lady loves her some boxing; a notion that’s communicated only through dialogue. Through a series of incidents that demonstrate Jackie is neither stupid nor capable of biting her tongue, she ends up in pissing match with head promoter LaRocca (Tony Shalhoub, also sporting an intense accent), who sells her a boxer, Green, for a buck. Green isn’t the real deal, in fact he’s a crack head, but while checking up on him, Kallen does find the real deal: raw, angry Luther Shaw (Omar Epps).

She signs him, hires a wise, retired trainer, Felix, (director Charles S. Dutton in the films strongest performance), and the rest writes itself: Luther gets more and more successful, LaRocca stands in the way of his title shot, Kallen becomes increasingly self-obsessed, ruins her relationship with Luther, only to overcome her flaws and have all redeemed in the final title bout.

I don’t mean to sound glib; I like a clichéd sports film as much as the next person. Honest, I cried at Miracle. But there’s some oomph missing from all the climactic moments, which the script is at least partially at fault for. Ryan’s final speech to Shaw is so utterly forgettable, so lacking spark, it’s impossible to believe that it eggs him on to victory.

More believable is the quiet grace of ...