An average movie

When I first heard of this movie, I thought the concept did sound really cool and, even if it turned out to be a flop at the box-office, I still wanted to check it out. Indeed, I loved the idea of Jake La Motta facing Rocky Balboa, even if they were both around 70 years old each. And, to my surprise, even though the critics completely dismissed this movie when it was released, I thought it actually was not so bad at all after all. Sure, the story was fairly generic and completely predictable but, in my opinion, these 2 boxers, their rivalry, how they ended up in this spot, all these elements were all fairly well developed and actually really entertaining. Even the minor characters such as the one played by Kim Basinger, Jon Bernthal, Alan Arkin and Kevin Hart worked fine. The only exception would be Frankie Brite played by LL Cool J who had so very little impact on the story that he could and probably should have been removed. Eventually, the only thing that didn’t really work was the tone. Indeed, they went for some comedy and they even leaned towards parody which was a rather misguided choice. Eventually, it is hardly surprising since it was directed by Peter Segal, a guy with a not really impressive track-record (for example, he was behind 3 Adam Sandler features among other things). In fact, with such a director onboard, it could have been so much worse. Still, even without going for a dark gritty drama, with such intriguing characters, if they would have gone with a slightly more serious approach, it could have been actually pretty good. Anyway, to conclude, in spite of its flaws, it turned out to be actually a decent watch and I think it is actually worth a look, especially if you are eager to see a confrontation between Jake La Motta and Rocky Balboa.