Resurrecting the Champ

Resurrecting the Champ tells the tale of a boxer gone homeless and the reporter telling the story to the world. Did you know there is only one letter difference between boxing and boring?

Dull writer Erik (Josh Hartnett) accidently finds Champ (Samuel L. Jackson) when he is being beaten up by some young men in an alley. Erick's marriage is falling apart, he lies to his son about his friend and can't write an article with heart to save his live.

Director Rod Lurie couldn't make a movie with heart either. I spent the majority of this movie trying to find one reason to care for any of the characters. Erick, the writer, couldn't be more uninteresting if he were a rice cake. He has the personality and haircut of a wet mop. His story is as engaging as grandpa's story about his ten year battle with bunions. Champ isn't any more captivating than Erik. He is a boxer who's soul fire burned as brightly as his as a blown out candle. His story was as pedestrian as a person in a cross walk.

Lurie and writers Michael Bortman and Allison Burnett should be ashamed of the film they created. I am a firm believer that one should stay to the end of a movie because often the end is redemptive of the movie but I could barely keep myself in my seat during the movie. I was squirming, rustling, and literally hitting myself in the face with my pen to keep myself awake. I chugged the coffee I had brought in hopes of keeping myself awake. I thought about swimming in a sea of espresso naked with paper cuts all over my body, in hopes it would keep me from slumber. I had the guy sitting next to me, who was a stranger, pinching me through the movie to keep me awake. I would have been jumping up and down, trying to keep myself awake, if it would not have been rude. More than once I considered suicide as an option, but I then decided to go for the healthier option, homicide. I chewed off every single fingernail. Mind aching doldrums would have been more interesting. I actually feared snoring and humiliating myself through the movie. Would it be cheating on my husband if I slept with an entire theater of people?