Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)Before I first saw this movie I was expecting a Lifetime channel movie
of the week, but it turned out to be a little better than that. In fact
I thought it had a hint of independent movieness about it or it could have
been the small budget. Maybe it was both. Kind of a quiet movie, small
cast, and urban Detroit setting. Erika portrays a woman, Patty, caught
up in an abusive relationship and struggles to find her way out of it.
Hooking up with a Tommy, a would-be amateur boxer who also runs a boxing
gym, Patty asks him to help train her. Her reasoning? Maybe to take out
her frustrations over being defenseless and punched out by her boyfriend
or to somehow seek her own independence. Patty's boxing interest takes
off and although becomes a novelty at first, through the magic of
film she ends up in the championship bout of the year.
The chemistry between the Tommy and Patty was nice and restrained at first
to allow the plot to unfold before the fireworks go off between them. James
Colby was a good find for this movie and thought he had boxing and all the
mythology about it at the right temperature for this movie which wasn't about
boxing in my opinion. Not about what they could get out of boxing, but what
boxing would make of them - stronger in life inside and outside the ring
hopefully. Peripheral characters include the opportunistic boxing promoter, a sympathetic
girlfriend and the desperate loser boyfriend all of whom put in good performances in their roles.
I like that Erika tried to pick an atypical movie project that stretches her
talent and this one does it. Never would have expected her to portray a reasonable
fascimile of a boxer, but she does pull it off. She looks really cut in this
movie and although a lot of the boxing was sloppy and wild, in the climatic
Rocky fight against a really buff opponent (professional maybe?) she looked
like she had done some good training for this movie. Only nit-picky thing I
had was I wished they hadn't beauty groomed her to be so good looking in this
movie (maybe it's just her natural beauty and she can't help it!), but a
dress-down like Cameron Diaz in "Being John Malkovich" where she was so grungy
and unrecognizable would have made the character more sympathetic and empowering
when she succeeds. And the most important thing - was there nudity? Well...
if I had directed there would have been the quintessential shower scene, but alas
they didn't ask me. She does have a brief nude scene from the side in a love
scene with James Colby where I was still wowed with her hot bod.
Not much stuff on the dvd except audio setup and chapter selections, actor
commentary or making of the movie would have been nice to see though. Another good
Erika movie to see is A Pyromanic's Love Story with a strong performances by
John Leguizamo and Sadie Frost.
Click Here to see more reviews about: The Opponent (2001)
