RESURRECTING THE CHAMP shows the importance of casting and directing in turning a good script into a great film. Based loosely on the experiences of writer J.R. Moeringer, the writing here is solid, but Josh Hartnett as Eric Kennon, Jr., a reporter struggling the shadow of both his famous father and of his rising star ex-wife, fails spectacularly to externalize the inner conflict that drives him. On the other hand, Samuel L. Jackson, as the eponymous Champ, turns in a tour de force performance as the prizefighter on the skids who becomes Kennon’s shot at journalistic gold.
It seems like Kismet when Kennon comes upon Bob Satterfield, former contender, now homeless phantom of the streets, being set upon by some kids with a bad attitude. He’s at a crossroads in his career, getting more bylines published than any other reporter in the history of the Denver Times, but being told by his editor (Alan Alda), that his copy is typing, not writing, forgettable even before he’s finished reading it. Add being separated from his wife, and anguishing over his son feeling as abandoned by him as he felt about his own father, and the story, which grabs the interest of his paper’s magazine editor, is a gift from the universe. It’s just a matter of convincing the Champ to cooperate, and writing something that will engage an audience rather that just fill space on the page.
Rather than the cliché of two people from different worlds finding a common bond, the film ambitiously goes for a bigger story. It gamely takes on the changing nature of journalism in an internet world, as well as the struggle between ambition and truth. Kennan’s success with the story, which comes early in the film, is then put into those contexts. The point brought home with a sharp edge when he’s wooed, professionally, and possibly carnally, by Showtime in the person of a sultry but tough-as-nails casting executive (Teri Hatcher), who offers him the world in exchange for any professional credibility. The last thing the public wants, she coos over drinks in Vegas, is the truth. It puts the central conflict of the story, a factual error Kennan makes due to carelessness and enthusiasm, into a whole new light, and one with disturbing ramifications for the Fourth Estate.
Hartnett never quite achieves emotional resonance. He sighs, but without conviction, going through the paces of a man whose greatest triumph is about to be taken from him, along with any sort of future, while never conveying the slightest bit of inner turmoil. His face is a perfectly blank slate that appears to have just woken up from a nap and hasn’t quite gotten all the synapse firing yet. By contrast, Jackson is arresting, affecting a falsetto voice and the sprightly shuffle of someone who has taken one too many blows to the head and the psyche. He does the unexpected at every turn. Unfailingly upbeat, even when taking Kennan down a peg or two or being menaced by thuggish kids, delicately overcome when the Champ sees blurry images on a television of him in his heyday, he takes over the screen while making it look easy. With Hartnett not providing him with a credible foil, however, the dynamics of the story fail to take off.
RESURRECTING THE CHAMP is a literate story with more food for thought than competent follow-though. A trenchant consideration of print journalism in a world increasingly taken over by infotainment and glitz winning out even over style, much less substance, it may be, but as a cinematic effort, it lacks the wow factor that it could have packed.
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