Joy

JOY                 B-                   

USA  (124 mi)  2015  d:  David O. Russell                Official site

Another oddball piece for David O. Russell, among his more idiosyncratic works that seem to relish their own absurd dysfunction, leading the audience through a circuitous path that includes weird family meltdowns and abysmal financial failure, where all hopes and dreams are shattered and the audience is forced to endure a heroine that is literally wiped off the mat, forced to admit her abject failure before, by some miracle, the situation changes, leading to a fairy tale ending that bears little resemblance to everything that came before, perhaps suggesting there is a tenuous line between success and failure.  Perhaps most improbable of all, and likely undetected by most viewers following the sheer lunacy in which the way the story is told, is that the film is actually a quirky biopic based on a real-life person, Joy Mangano, one of the producers of the film and the inventor of the Miracle Mop, her first product, but also the inventor of over 100 patents, including Huggable Hangers, the best-selling product in the history of the Home Shopping Network.  After starting her career at QVC (Quality, Value, Convenience), an international shopping network, by selling an astounding 18,000 mops in just 20 minutes, she founded her own company, Ingenious Designs LLC, eventually becoming the face of the Home Shopping Network, where she remains one of their most successful sellers, with annual sales topping $150 million.  As of 2015, her net worth is around $50 million according to Joy Mangano Net Worth | Celebrity Net Worth, yet none of this is known to audiences ahead of time, instead there is a simple opening dedication, “Inspired by the true stories of daring women.  One in particular.”  Most may be unfamiliar with Joy Mangano, but will only know about her on the strength of Jennifer Lawrence’s performance, where for most of the film she’s a struggling, unemployed housewife just trying to keep her beleaguered family together, as it appears to have ample opportunities to implode upon itself.   

The third consecutive pairing of actress Jennifer Lawrence along with actors Bradley Cooper and Robert De Niro working with this director, after Silver Linings Playbook (2012) and American Hustle (2013), Russell uses an interesting narrative structure, interweaving scenes from a televised soap opera, including legendary soap actors Susan Lucci from the now cancelled All My Children, and from General Hospital, Donna Mills, Laura Wright, and Maurice Benard, showing them in full melodramatic mode, resorting to the use of a gun to protect some underhanded family embezzlement, living in a hyper-traumatic universe that is artificially inspired, creating a parallel world with that of the living, but this holds the rapt attention of Joy’s mother Terri, played by a near unrecognizable Virginia Madsen, who literally never gets out of bed, living a life consumed by watching soap operas.  Still distraught over her failed marriage, she goes ballistics every time her divorced husband (and Joy’s father) shows up, Rudy (Robert De Niro), immediately erupting in a shouting match, with Rudy inevitably trying to take charge in the worst manner imaginable, like a bull in a China shop, breaking things on the floor that Joy is obliged to clean up afterwards.  Joy’s marriage has crumbled as well, though amicably, apparently, as her ex-husband Tony (Édgar Ramírez), an aspiring, out of work musician is living in the basement, while Joy and her two young children live with her mother and grandmother Mimi (Diane Ladd), who provides an all-knowing narration, seemingly aware of the present, past, and future, reminding viewers that she always found something special in Joy, knowing that she would be successful if she just follows her dreams.  This sunny, overly optimistic view contrasts drastically with the financially dire and often contentious surroundings of this household, where the family is in a constant state of friction.  Yet in flashback mode, we see her picture book wedding, which looks like it could have been shot during THE GODFATHER (1972), including a blissful rendition of Frank and Nancy Sinatra’s “Something Stupid,” Jennifer Lawrence and Edgar Ramirez Sing ... - YouTube (2:19), while even earlier we see her at age ten playing with her best friend Jackie, showing meticulous care in cutting and folding white paper, creating an exquisite imaginary world that she keeps in a box by the side of her bed.

The internalized mindset of the story seems to be an age of self-inflicted narcissism set to the sounds of Cream singing “I Feel Free,” Cream - I Feel Free - YouTube (2:44), revealing an out-of-control family on the verge of collapse, where Joy is the only one bringing home a paycheck and the only thing holding it all together, as everyone else is pretty much useless, thinking only about themselves, where their exclusive self-centered views are continually exasperating.  Graduating from her Long Island high school at the top of her class, Joy avoided college to pick up the pieces of her parent’s failed marriage, eventually helping do the books for her father’s auto-body business, putting her constantly at odds with Peggy (Elisabeth Röhm), Rudy’s same-age daughter from another marriage, who undermines her every chance she gets.  This petty squabbling literally defines the picture, becoming a crumbling glimpse of a middle class family teetering on the edge, where it’s impossible to think anything good could come out of this continual dysfunction.  But Joy still has a best friend in Jackie (Dascha Polanco), someone who has always believed in her, her grandmother’s continual optimism, and her own unfailing belief in herself, so when she enthusiastically comes up with the bare outlines of a business project, creating a self-cleaning mop that simply outcleans the competition, she does what any young entrepreneur would do under the circumstances, ask for help, and money, from her family, which includes her father’s new girlfriend named Trudy (Isabella Rossellini), a wealthy widow with a fiercely protective interest in her late husband’s fortune.  While it’s all somewhat amateurish, where she’s inclined to place too much trust in her partners, the film does a good job in demonstrating just how significant the hurdles are in any startup business, where all the significant investments and major decisions are made prior to seeing any returns, where some investors blink when they see the amount of incurred debt and get cold feet.  Where Joy goes wrong is thinking others in the family share her same interest, where it’s curious how quickly they drop her to protect their own financial bottom line, adding to the cyclical picture of family dysfunction.  While every rags to riches story is unique, and behind every success story are a multitude of projects that fail, this film incredulously spends more time on all the things that went wrong, leading to moments of utter disillusionment, where many in the audience literally gasp that this could be happening in a Jennifer Lawrence movie, who may as well be America’s sweetheart, where her one opportunity for success may end in financial ruin.  It’s a dizzyingly complicated finale, where it gets more than a little convoluted along the way, as there are literally dozens of impasses and side roads, each more improbable than the last, turning into some kind of international corporate espionage tale, yet somehow she prevails.  It gets a bit tricky how she pulls herself out of the abyss, and it’s not for the faint of heart, but the underlying message is not how you respond to success, but to setbacks incurred along the way, where how you overcome adversity is what makes all the difference. 

American Hustle

AMERICAN HUSTLE           B+     
USA  (138 mi)  2013  ‘Scope  d:  David O. Russell                 Official Site

The one thing Hollywood does know how to do is churn out lightweight comedies, often vulgar and tasteless, and utterly forgettable.  But when they feature big name celebrities, they make tons of money.  Occasionally, by some strange alignment of the stars, they even turn out better than advertised and become a memorable part of cinema history.  Who would have thought the strange and twisting plot of SOME LIKE IT HOT (1959), featuring two big name male stars in drag avoiding the mob while chasing after Marilyn Monroe would be so funny?  David O. Russell has always had a thing for comedy, the weirder the better, where I HEART HUCKABEES (2004) was so outlandishly bizarre that he was unable to make another film for 6 years, having been sent to Hollywood Siberia, apparently, where he spent his time in the Cinema 101 re-education gulags learning how to make a studio film.  Having mastered that art, he’s been on a roll ever since, churning out three remarkably popular and critically acclaimed hits, from THE FIGHTER (2010), which starred an Oscar winning performance by Christian Bale along with Amy Adams, to the immensely popular Silver Linings Playbook (2012), which starred Bradley Cooper and an Oscar winning Jennifer Lawrence.  AMERICAN HUSTLE brings all four together in a hilarious screwball comedy, and while it opens with the acknowledgement, “Some of this actually happened,” if you stick around until the end of the final credits it ends with the disclaimer, “This is a work of fiction.”  Any resemblance to real life has long since been obliterated by the exaggerated mayhem that is this movie.  In fact, the Russell film this most resembles is the droll comedy I HEART HUCKABEES, but instead of being so mystifyingly baffling, caught up in some existential wasteland of humor, this film actually hits the mark and is drop dead hilarious from the get go, where the screenplay by Eric Singer and the director is little more than one continuous blur of one-liners.  In fact, it’s all about the creation of zany characters furiously running around with very little character or story development, where the film really is a bit of a con job itself as it has a huge and gaping hole where the reality is supposed to be, memorable for the dazzling assortment of comic bits, but lacking any sense of complexity or depth.  This is the kind of film, however, that is so well constructed that it might be forgiven.  

Loosely based (to the point of being unrecognizable) on the ABSCAM scandal in the late 70’s and early 80’s, which was an FBI sting operation offering bribes that lured several U.S. Congressmen and a Senator, not to mention other lower rung political players.  Perhaps most surprising were those few that refused to take bribes, including U.S. Senator Larry Pressler and Penthouse publisher Bob Guccione.  The unique nature of the sting operation is that is was masterminded by Melvin Weinberg, a convicted con artist who helped plan and conduct the operation in order to avoid serving a 3-year prison sentence on ten counts of fraud, and was actually paid $150,000 for services rendered.  They dangled the money of various FBI informants posing as oil sheiks to 31 targeted officials, using questionable entrapment methods throughout.  The duplicitous sex life of Weinberg included a wife (who committed suicide) and a mistress that he eventually married, with both continually at odds with one another.  While the film has the celebrity feel of another star-studded OCEAN’S ELEVEN movie (2001, 2004, 2007), where it’s mostly silly fun wrapped up in surface superficialities, never digging very far under the surface, where complexity isn’t even a consideration, as instead it’s an old-fashioned Hollywood movie that just wants to enthrall the audience with pure entertainment.  Of course, the Hollywood film this most resembles is George Roy Hill’s THE STING (1973), a box office smash winning 7 Academy Awards, which was also inspired by real life con men, featuring plenty of likeable big name stars, including Robert Redford and Paul Newman still in their prime working together in an easy going gangster thriller with plenty of Depression era pathos along with its fair share of laughs.  Hill’s film is given a harshly realistic setting, where the unraveling of the sting operation is a thing of beauty, while Russell’s film couldn’t be more artificial, where the wretched excess of the era is played with exaggerated characters and settings, all pushing the boundaries of believability, as if everyone’s channeling the exaggerated comedy of Second City alumni Alan Arkin, creating an over-the-top melodrama that is largely satiric of Scorsese films like Goodfellas (1990) and CASINO (1995), especially with some overly conspicuous costume choices and swooping camera movements from Linus Sandgren that create a stunning, operatic effect.      

AMERICAN HUSTLE is this year’s Argo (2012), the Academy Award winning film that was largely a tribute to Hollywood itself, or the year before with The Artist (2011), where these are examples of feelgood industry tributes that have little to do with the actual best film, where they end up being chosen because of the way they positively represent the industry.  While this could be the third film in a row to win for pure Hollywood entertainment, it’s hardly the best film of the year, though it is a wondrous expression of Hollywood moviemaking, an elaborate series of hoaxes that grow deliriously out of control, where the thrill is watching a train wreck happening with such audacious fun, turning into a comic farce, each step along the way more mockingly disastrous than the last.  While the film will likely get credit for the writing, perhaps the funniest film of the year, and the loony direction which is kept under control by Russell, but what’s most spectacular are the wall-to-wall performances.  Christian Bale (who gained 40 pounds for the role) plays the Melvin Weinberg role of Irving Rosenfeld, a lifelong con artist, currently specializing in art forgery, whose own personal eccentricities are on display in a wordless opening scene where he attempts to glue his hair together.  While he owns a string of dry cleaning businesses in New Jersey, they are largely a front for his nefarious business practices.  Into his life comes Sydney Prosser (Amy Adams), a former stripper from New Mexico who is now posing to be someone else, disguising herself as a British heiress, Lady Edith, with a line of credit from her London bank accounts, who blows Irving’s mind from the outset.  They meet at a party over a common inspirational interest in Duke Ellington’s “Jeep’s Blues” Jeep's Blues - Duke Ellington 1956 YouTube (5:19), where the two become fast business and romantic partners, even though Irving already has a demanding wife Rosalyn, Jennifer Lawrence, and an adopted son, who are all but missing in the first half of the film, which takes a particular fascination with their prolific illegal activity, where business was never better as the two combine to offer fake loans at $5000 per investor, using only the most financially desperate clientele, but they make a calculated error when sizing up Richie DiMaso (Bradley Cooper) who turns out to be an FBI agent.

DiMaso insists they can only escape jail time if they help him nail some bigger fish, promising to let them go if they can help make four significant arrests.  The back and forth power struggle between the two men about who’s in charge leads to a ridiculous display of male arrogance, with Sydney playing them both against one another, though she really wants to flee the country with Irving right then and there, as otherwise they’ll get sucked into a labyrinth of governmental inefficiency, since they’re not the real professionals in the business, which is exactly what happens.  DiMaso ends up crazy as a loon, an overambitious agent who goes over the head of his by-the-book boss (Louis C.K.) and reels in an equally ambitious District Attorney Anthony Amado (Alessandro Nivola), who authorizes most of what he asks for, including a leer jet, $2 million dollars in cash, and an entire floor of a luxurious hotel, while another Fed agent, Michael Peña (who acknowledges he’s Mexican), poses as a billionaire oil sheik with money to invest in rebuilding Atlantic City.  But they need a guy with connections who can reel in the fish.  For that they call upon Carmine Polito (Jeremy Renner), a New Jersey mayor sporting a pompadour to die for.  Polito’s charm is loving what he does, where he leads a charmed live with a happy extended family and plenty of exposure to the limelight, which he no doubt cherishes the most, as he’s a man of the people who loves to surround himself with crowds of well wishers.  When he bolts, refusing to take the bait, Irving pulls the “I’m just a guy from the neighborhood” routine, enticing him with the idea of a huge construction project that will employ plenty of people, where he can be the guy to literally rebuild Atlantic City back to its once promising stature of the Las Vegas of the East.  Once Polito’s on board, the next step is to meet his friends and associates that can help bankroll the deal.  At this point, the film simply loses all touch with reality and enters another dimension that we only ever see in pictures.  Due to Carmine’s insistence upon family values, Irving is forced to bring his wife, leaving Sydney to pout with Richie.   

Like every other movie she’s ever been in, Jennifer Lawrence simply steals every scene she’s in, no matter who’s in the cast, and here she hits prime real estate.  While Irving and Richie are cowering in the corner after taking a look at Carmine’s friends, who are all mob connected, Rosalyn simply marches right over and makes herself comfortable, with these guys crawling all over her like a moth to a flame, and she’s loving every second of it.  While this is happening, there’s the brewing animosity between Rosalyn and Sydney, both in bad girl modes who literally hate each other, but to top it off they are wearing plunging necklines with the most sexually revealing dresses (with Adams channeling Bernadette Peters, who should receive royalties), where they’re like alley cats with one another, finally duking it out in the ladies room in what has to be one of the best scenes of the year.  Simultaneously the men get down to serious business, where the mob’s chief negotiator, flown in from Miami just for the occasion, is none other than Victor Tellegio, the uncredited Robert De Niro, who is the chief spokesman for Meyer Lansky, the Florida mob boss, and they want in on the deal, demanding $10 million dollars by the end of the week to show if they’re really serious.  The scene of bad girls has escalated to the most brutal and godawful evil men on the planet, where Irving can be seen sweating at the table, especially when Tellegio stares a hole straight through him.  Truly, it’s a pleasure to see De Niro carry this degree of weight as the ultimate heavy, as nobody does it better.  From there, the film only spirals more out of control into pure spectacle, as this is where the hoax meets real life, where these guys are in way over their heads and now could get themselves and their families killed for dealing with the wrong guys.  Adding mobsters to the film is a touch of glory, where it’s particularly exhilarating to see Irving dance arm in arm with Carmine in a celebratory all night drinking mode to Tom Jones singing “Delilah” Tom Jones - Delilah ( 1968).avi - HD YouTube (3:15), which is paralleled by an earlier disco scene with Richie and Sydney carousing on the dance floor to Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes - Don't Leave Me This Way YouTube (6:06), becoming a pulsating disco fantasia.  All in all, this is an endlessly entertaining comedy continually spinning out of control, where perhaps the supreme moment is watching Jennifer Lawrence grow deranged while performing her own crazy rendition of Paul McCartney & WINGS - Live And Let Die YouTube (3:11), hoping to crush her husband’s crazy ambitions and teach him a thing or two about marital fidelity, using the mob to get the message across.  Russell energizes his film with a killer soundtrack of choice music of the 70’s, but mostly this is a brilliantly directed film that feels as if we're floating on air, a sensational choreography of madcap comedy, changing emotions, and utter chaos that continually changes shape before our eyes, a sleight of hand maneuver that’s meant to dazzle and delight.

Silver Linings Playbook

SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK        B+                  

USA  (117 mi)  2012  ‘Scope  d:  David O. Russell                  Official site

Winner of the People’s Choice Award at the Toronto Film Festival and the Audience Award at Austin, this is another candidate for the feel good movie of the year, where mainstream audiences will love the quirky romance with a happy ending, while cinephiles will love the originality of the characters and the honesty of the script, as this is a compelling story that uses contrivances like good luck charms, not afraid to make the most of oddball plot twists, with terrific performances, excellent musical choices and solid direction, where the ensemble cast shines throughout.  Nonetheless, initially this story only goes so far, something of a portrait of an eccentric, following the exploits of an excitable young man, Bradley Cooper as Pat, a guy that became unhinged when he saw his wife in the shower with another man, causing such a violent reaction that he placed himself under the mercy of the court with a plea bargain, losing his job, his house, and his wife, spending 8 months in a mental institution attempting to regroup before his mother finally brings him back home to his parents, Robert De Niro as Pat Sr. and Jacki Weaver as Dolores.  His father’s undergone a few recent changes of his own, losing his regular job and now runs a bookie operation, trying to raise money for his restaurant by taking bets on sports events, as he is a rabid Philadelphia Eagle fan, where Sunday afternoon’s in front of the TV watching an Eagle game is sacred territory, using a lucky handkerchief and any other black magic mojo he can think of to improve his odds.  Pat has other things on his mind after the hospital, and all he can think about is developing a positive mental attitude about his life in order to win his wife Nikki (Brea Bee) back, believing this is his silver lining, getting in shape and losing weight like she requested and changing his life for the better, while everyone else refuses to mention the obvious, that he’s had no contact with her since the hospitalization and she’s likely moved on without him.      

Much like his father, Pat lives by his obsessions, much of it triggered however by his untreated bipolar mood swings, where he feels guilty about taking the psychotropic medicine, goes for long periods unmedicated hoping he can improve on his own, but inevitably suffers recurrent roadblocks, such as violating restraining orders, where he is simply unable to deal with his uncontrollable anger, beautifully juxtaposed with the mind-altering music of Led Zeppelin.  Adapting the material from Matthew Quick’s novel, the director has written a very clever script, as the quirky individuality of the character is often hilarious, especially the means by which he attempts to adapt to the real world, such as his angry discovery of Hemingway’s ending of The Sun Also Rises, where it’s more about social alienation than mental illness, where the director has to carefully straddle the line not to poke fun of people with serious mental health issues.  Russell’s stroke of genius is introducing Jennifer Lawrence as Tiffany, another person who’s gone through her own depression issues, having recently lost her husband to a senseless death, where the directness of their language together couldn’t be more refreshing, especially when talking about the reactions to various prescribed medications at a family dinner, where they’re like two peas in a pod, both seen as oddballs within their own families, but their heightened state of vulnerability gives their characters a unique perspective.  Having seen Lawrence now in three pictures, including 2010 Top Ten Films of the Year: #3 Winter's Bone (2010) and Like Crazy (2011), she has literally stolen all three movies with the exceptional nature of her performances, and here she simply *makes* the movie, which would be nowhere without her, picking up the pieces left behind by Pat’s distinctively unsettled life and continually maneuvering him into a better place, without him realizing it.  She brings the dramatic conflict of authentic language and stark emotion directly into the focus, tenderly accepting him with all his flaws intact even as Pat continues to dream of his perfect life with his wife Nikki.  

There’s a nice contrast between the idealized and obsessive fantasy in Pat’s head and the supposed perfect marriage of Pat’s brother-in-law (John Ortiz) with ice princess Julia Stiles as Veronica, Nikki’s sister, where she’s equally obsessed that everything in her house has to be in proper order, adding additional pressure to their marriage, where missteps are simply not allowed.  At the same time, Pat’s father obsessively plays the numbers, betting his family’s livelihood on the outcomes, while Tiffany at times seems equally deluded about turning Pat’s life around, where she gets him to promise to be her dance partner in a heavily stylized ballroom dance contest which requires plenty of strenuous rehearsal time.  Perhaps the best sequence in the film is set to Bob Dylan & Johnny Cash - Girl From The North Country - YouTube (3:42), where the mixed moods of the two unique characters strangely and appealingly come together, as they do in the song.  A few trailer sequences are set to “Silver Lining (Crazy Bout You)” by Jessie J, Silver Linings Playbook Music Video (2012) - Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence Movie HD YouTube (2:39).  The beauty of Tiffany’s character is Jennifer Lawrence’s nuanced performance, showing extraordinary range in an Oscar touted performance, bringing sympathy to such a complicated and misunderstood life, always remaining true to her feminine nature by defying the easy road, continually doing the unexpected because that’s what’s required, as people are that complicated to deal with.  Adding to the mix are several side characters, like Chris Tucker as a fellow inmate from the hospital, perhaps Pat’s best friend in the movie, who tries to “blacken up” their dance moves, or Anupam Kher as Pat’s psychiatrist, who is also, inexplicably, another obsessed Eagle’s fan.  Yes, the contrivances are fast and furious, but here they hardly matter, as they’re beautifully integrated into the mysteriously jagged storyline which brings these two improbable characters into our lives and makes them worth caring about, turning this into a highly entertaining Christmas holiday classic, bringing the indie world of David. O. Russell into the mainstream, providing comic inspiration with plenty of internalized soul searching, where it’s all about spending Sunday afternoons with the family, with Mom in the kitchen fixing crab fries and Dad sweating out the point spread.        

Warrior

WARRIOR                  B                     

USA  (140 mi)  2011  ‘Scope  d:  Gavin O’Connor

While there’s nothing particularly novel about this formulaic story, a ROCKY (1976) picture with Nick Nolte in the famous Burgess Meredith role as the aging fight trainer, with the role of Rocky split between two brothers, Tom Hardy as Tommy and Joel Edgarton as Brendan, split from one another as teenagers and forced to lead very separate and distinctly different lives.  Hardy plays a brooding ex-Marine, a loner with so many complications in his life he can barely utter a word, a guy carrying a grudge who turns into a horrifically brutal fighter, while his brother Brandon is a high school physics teacher, married with two children, but about to have his home foreclosed, forcing him into a state of desperation where he can pick up extra cash from the fight business.  Joel Edgarton is the screenwriter of the very stylish The Postman Always Rings Twice style Australian film THE SQUARE (2008), directed by his brother Nash, and one of the criminal brothers in one of he best pictures of last year, ANIMAL KINGDOM (2010).  Here he plays the older brother who got the better end of the deal, as the younger brother was forced to flee from an abusive father, taking his terminally ill mother with him, basically fending for himself at an early age, losing all contact with his family.  Neither one has any use for their father, who finally after all these years is trying to get sober, but barely even registers as having a pulse with these two guys, as they’ve left him behind ages ago.  Rather than playing football in Mark Wahlberg’s INVINCIBLE (2006), wrestling from Aronofsky’s THE WRESTLER (2008 ), or boxing in David O. Russell’s THE FIGHTER (2010), this movie features the latest fighting craze called the ultimate fighting championship, mixed martial arts, which allows boxing, wrestling, and various martial arts techniques where a fighter wins by points, knockouts or submission holds, where in this case, a round robin battle of 16 leads to 4 fights within 24 hours, the winner takes all, a $5 million cash prize.  

While the actual narrative is familiar, but rather than shown in an indie style picture, which is usually all character development, this is a tense, highly stylized, Hollywood action picture that takes us directly into the center of the ring where it becomes an adrenaline-laced fight picture, an old-fashioned popcorn movie that stars three men who are so damaged they are barely articulate, who haven’t spoken to one another in years, and when they do have the opportunity, they still have next to nothing to say, so it’s all about what happens inside the ring.  Tommy is a former undefeated high school State wrestling champion, but his quick exit from the state curtailed his promising career, while Brendan had a brief, fairly ordinary ultimate fighting career that also came to an abrupt end as his wife Tess (Jennifer Morrison) couldn’t stand to see her husband get pummeled.  But both are completely off the radar when it comes to ranking the best fighters in the world, so just getting into this tournament is something of a stretch.  However, the acting in this picture is superb, among the best performances of the year, where they each complement one another nicely, where Nolte is the odd man out, bruised, beaten, old and weary, who dares to hope against all fading hope that he can reconcile his differences with his two sons who refuse to acknowledge his existence, who spends his time listening to a tape in his ear of a reading of Melville’s Moby Dick.  Tommy went off to Iraq and bulked up, but so little is known about him that his life is a mystery even to himself, as he keeps everything secretly locked up inside, very much in the mold of Stallone in FIRST BLOOD (1992), where fighting is his true release, seen kicking the living crap out of a championship contender as a walk on fighter in a dingy gym, which is how he earns his reputation.  He’s also recognized by a soldier in Iraq as a war hero, but the Army has no clue who he is.  Brendan is a popular teacher, but imagine the looks on the kids faces when he walks into classes with cuts and bruises all over his face, where he’s the talk of the school forcing the administration to step in, as this is not the kind of example they’re interested in setting for young well-educated teenagers.               

While there is a working class setting of Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, there is little connection to actual working class problems, as few, if any, American households can attempt to save their homes via ultimate fighting prize winnings.  Most would stand a better chance beating the odds of winning an extreme makeover offered by the Oprah Winfrey show, where they may refurbish, redecorate, and pay a year’s mortgage to save your home from foreclosure.  Instead this is all about the promised lure of dollars, where instead of hunkering down and figuring out what most families would need to do, like sell one of their two high-priced automobiles, they rely upon a Hollywood dream, a clichéd option that really doesn’t exist, only in the movies.  This movie would barely be a consideration except that the production values are excellent, the acting is extremely compelling, the suspense is palpable, using a split screen and quick cut editing technique, all adding to the build up of tension, where the ass kicking action in the ring is riveting, reinforced by the musical soundtrack by Mark Isham, all of which adds up to a remarkably well made motion picture, one that will likely delight audiences as one of the feel good pictures of the year.  The question will be whether this film has any staying power, whether any of the emotional connections have any resiliency, and whether there’s enough fan interest in the action scenes.  The blue collar setting is interesting, but the degree of dysfunctional family relationship is dark and disturbing, where the option of organized crime never intrudes, as these boys would likely have been recruited as teenagers by neighborhood gangs.  As bleak as the unfolding narrative can seem, real life often offers far darker alternatives.  There are weight divisions in every fighting match, including weigh-ins, but that seems to have been thrown by the wayside, where the fight tournament actually resembles Bruce Lee in ENTER THE DRAGON (1973), continually fending off bigger and stronger contenders, where the most patient and disciplined fighter often prevails, defying all odds, where a guy never given a chance still has a chance.  In times of financial ruin, where people are legitimately losing their jobs and their homes, not to mention their pensions and their futures, this film, like the director’s earlier 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey dream on ice, MIRACLE (2004), feels like a hope and a prayer.