Hands of Stone Reviews

I wasn’t really sure what to expect from this flick but since there was a decent cast involved, I thought I might as well check it out. To be honest, I have to admit that I knew pretty much nothing about Roberto Duran before watching this flick and, only therefore, it was pretty neat to discover this incredible athlete. On the other hand, as a result, I probably gave this movie more credit than it actually deserved. Indeed, even though it was dealing with a strong story, I have to admit that it wasn’t really a strong movie, even far from it, I’m afraid. The main issue was that the whole thing was just too random without properly digging into some of the interesting ideas displayed. The best example would be when Sugar Ray Leonard was rematching his first match against Roberto Duran with his wife. Indeed, this scene was not bad at all as he was arguing that Duran psychologically f*cked him up on purpose to throw off his game. However, while this argument might have had some merit, it did actually vastly contradict everything displayed before or after in this movie. Indeed, Duran was displayed as a hot head who very often lacked discipline and such a complex strategy was never discussed with his coach, Ray Arcel, who was the one who constantly arguing that Duran should exactly focus on this aspect. By the way, it was a relief to see De Niro in something half decent for once but, in fact I was actually above all impressed by Edgar Ramirez who was actually really good here giving, in my opinion, the best performance of his career. Anyway, to conclude, even if one of the greatest boxers of all the time probably deserved a better movie, it was still a decent watch and I think it is worth a look, at least, if you like the genre.