Movie Review: Resurrecting the Champ

I have to say, I wouldn't have thought of seeing this movie if some friends hadn't asked me to go with them. I figured from the title that it was about boxing, but though the movie was in fact based on an article written by J. R. Moehringer in 1997 in the magazine section of the LA Times about a 50s boxing champ, the story isn't really so much about the sport itself. It's more of a human interest drama about fathers and sons.

Sports reporter Erik Kernan (Josh Hartnett) is going through a dry spell with his writing. Metz, his editor (played by Alan Alda) at the fictional Denver Times, tells him how forgettable his writing is. Erik is reluctantly separated from his wife (played by Kathryn Morris) and worried that the separation will cause him to be as remote a father figure to his son as his own father was to him. Then Erik meets an old boxer named Bob Satterfield (Samuel L. Jackson). Satterfield was a boxing champion in the 50s, when Erik's father--a man Erik never really knew and could never live up to--was a radio sportscaster. Satterfield is now homeless and living on the streets of Denver, where everyone calls him the Champ, but now he only fights off street punks. Erik figures he can write a story about Satterfield and jump-start his own career. He convinces Satterfield to let him write the story and spends a great deal of time with him, getting to know him. Erik learns even more about himself in the process.

When the story comes out, it soon becomes apparent that the story will either give Erik's career a tremendous boost, or it will be the biggest mistake of his life. It turns out that both Satterfield and Erik have a great deal to learn about honesty.

One thing that drives me crazy when I'm watching movies or TV shows "based on a true story" is that I don't know what's true and what isn't. So after watching the movie I did some online research and learned that Bob Satterfield really was a boxer in the 1950s, and J. R. Moehringer really wrote an article about his descent into poverty in 1997, as I mentioned. However, let's just say that Moehringer was much more accurate with his facts than Erik was in the movie.

Samuel L. Jackson is wonderful and completely convincing in his role as Satterfield. Hartnett is almost as good in the role of the sportswriter living in his father's shadow and in need of a break. Both men are in need of redemption. All in all, it's a compelling drama.