Review: Undisputed


Set in Sweetwater maximum security prison in California, we follow two boxers; Wesley Snipes’ Monroe Hutchens (all cool, detached arrogance) and Ving Rhames’ ‘Iceman’ Chambers (all swagger and intimidating badass arrogance) as they are set to collide and determine who is the undisputed champ. The former has spent the last ten years honing his skills behind bars and has a 67-0 record in prison-sanctioned fights to go with his life sentence for a moment of uncontrolled anger. Meanwhile, ‘Iceman’ was still the Heavyweight Champion of the world before being convicted and incarcerated for rape (he says he’s innocent of course), and has now been sent to Sweetwater in disgrace. The two try their best to downplay any feelings of being threatened by one another, with the supremely arrogant ‘Iceman’ not really taking the prison boxer all that seriously, whilst Hutchens sits alone in his cell making complicated structures out of toothpicks and looking all Zen-like. Observing it all is foul-mouthed aging mobster Peter Falk, who is a long-time scholar of the ‘sweet science’ and still holds sway inside and outside the prison walls. Michael Rooker is the prison guard who acts as referee for the fights, Wes Studi plays Rhames’ cellmate, whilst Fisher Stevens plays your typical little runt prisoner that every prison movie has to have.



Rock-solid 2002 blend of prison movie and boxing movie from filmmaker Walter Hill (“The Warriors”, “48 HRS”, “Streets of Fire”) probably spends more time with foul-mouthed Falk than I would’ve liked. Falk is memorable, sure, but very broad and very profane. More scenes with the enigmatic Snipes certainly would’ve helped (not to mention the talented Wes Studi and Michael Rooker), and some won’t like that neither fighter is shown to be an entirely good or bad guy.



Snipes (whose character was verging on being a contender before he was imprisoned) and Rhames are both excellent (especially the latter) and the film is still highly watchable and entertaining in an old-fashioned B-movie kinda way. Sometimes that’ll do, and that is the case here, even though I’m not much of a boxing guy. I just think that Hill’s decision to give us little subtitle information (who they are, what they’re in for, etc.) about each of the characters instead of actually giving us real character depth hurts the film a bit.



Definitely one of Hill’s better B-movies of the last couple of decades, even if it’s a bit of a stretch to think of Snipes and Rhames fighting in the same weight division (Seriously, have you seen Rhames? If it were martial arts, black belt Snipes might have a shot, but surely not the ‘sweet science’). Scripted by Hill and David Giler (“Aliens”, “Skin Game”) the film certainly lays on the Mike Tyson allusions awfully thick with Rhames’ character (even having a Robin Givens-like character tell-all in a tabloid TV interview- real subtle, Walter. Real subtle), without really laying judgement on him.



Rating: B-

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Review: Hellraiser (2022)

Recovering junkie Odessa A’zion accompanies scuzzy boyfriend Drew Starkey on a break-in where all they find is a weird puzzle box. A’zion later opens the box and after some weird shit happens, A’zion and Starkey figure it might be a good idea to learn more about this messed up trinket. Goran Visnjic plays a millionaire who possessed the box before our protagonist nicked it.   Is there any point in remaking/rebooting “Hellraiser” when the 1987 adaptation of Clive Barker’s original text was written and directed by Barker himself? And is considered a horror classic? On evidence here, absolutely not. Directed by David Bruckner ( “The Signal” ) and scripted by Ben Collins ( “The Night House” ) and Luke Piotrowski (ditto) this is an entirely tedious affair. I took a long time to get on board with the 1987 “Hellraiser” , I have to admit. It was wildly imaginative and original, like a nightmare transplanted on to film. However, the characters were stone cold and left me similarly chilly t
Read more

Review: Boyka: Undisputed

Yuri Boyka (Scott Adkins) is out of prison and fighting for a living, with ambitions for the ‘Most Complete Fighter’ to make a real name for himself. However, after an opponent dies during a fight, the deeply religious Boyka starts to have a crisis of conscience. He tries to make amends with the man’s widow, which eventually pits him against a local gangster (Alon Moni Aboutboul, quite good). Anything with Scott Adkins will generally get me interested, and although this series peaked with the superlative “Undisputed II: Last Man Standing” , this 2017 film from director Todor Chapkanov (director of the SyFy movies “Copperhead” and “Ghost Town” ) is no slouch in a series yet to deliver anything less than solid entertainment. Producer Isaac Florentine is missed in the director’s chair, but Chapkanov gives us at the very least the series’ most dramatically ambitious entry, as Adkins’ ‘most complete fighter’ Yuri Boyka continues on his journey to redemption here. In this one, the
Read more

Review: Ninja 2: Shadow of a Tear

Scott Adkins is once again Casey, an American proponent of the martial art of Ninjutsu. When Casey’s pregnant Japanese wife (Mika Hijii) is rubbed out, he’s on a vengeance mission to find her killers. A friendly face, Nakabara (Kane Kosugi) turns up at the funeral, and suggests Casey come to Thailand to deal with his grief in another country. Casey initially declines, but eventually takes Nakabara up on his offer. However, his wife’s murder still haunts Casey, and with intel supplied by Nakabara, the trail eventually leads Casey to a brutal drug baron named Goro (Shun Sugata).   I was extremely disappointed with the first “Ninja” , but had heard that this 2013 sequel from director Isaac Florentine ( “Undisputed II: Last Man Standing” , “Undisputed III: Redemption” , “Ninja” ) was a damn near masterpiece of the martial-arts action movie genre. Having now finally gotten my hot little hands on it, I’d say the hype is a bit much, but this is unquestionably a much better film than the f
Read more