After watching several Fox Faith films, I was ready to screen something a little more gritty, yet without having to endure endless profanity, blood and guts. Fortunately, Resurrecting the Champ fit the bill quite nicely. Samuel L. Jackson does well in a surprising turn as a homeless man, Champ, who wanders wine racks and claims to be former boxing near-legend Bob Satterfield, a man nearly everyone thought was dead.
That is, until enterprising and ambitious sports reporter Erik Kamen (Josh Hartnett) stumbles across him coming back from covering a game, just as Champ is being beaten up by a group of young thugs. The two form a quick acquaintanceship, and Kamen is quick to recognize the story potential of a once-notable boxer now living on the streets of Denver. Despite using Champ’s story to launch his own writing career, he nevertheless forms a friendship with the man.
However, Kamen makes a rookie reporter mistake and wants so desperately to believe Champ’s story, he doesn’t properly check it out and only after the story run and his success starts overwhelming him does he begin to suspect that Champ may not be Satterfield after all, and that’s when the really interesting exploration into ethics takes over and drives the remainder of the drama.
Cold Case’s Kathryn Morris appears as Kamen’s estranged wife, but is little used throughout the film, which is a waste of good talent. Alan Alda and David Paymer fare better as Kamen’s superiors at the Denver Times, earning good screen time and some nice moments. Peter Coyote is almost unrecognizable in his cameo as a long-time boxing journalist, and Teri Hatcher appears as a Showtime Sports promoter, interested in hiring Kamen.
Overall, the Rod Lurie-directed drama, based on an actual LA Times magazine piece by J.R. Moehringer, is a solid mix of boxing action, human drama and empathetic performances. The story has some nice turns and its exploration of ethics, truth-telling and lying is clear-eyed and honest on all sides. As a bonus, there’s little in the way of profanity and Kamen actually turns down more than one chance to cheat on his estranged wife, so it’s nice to see a film character make smart choices in a film that isn’t bent on selling a specific religion.
While Resurrecting the Champ doesn’t rank up there with Rocky Balboa or Raging Bull as a boxing movie, it is solid family entertainment, without religious pretensions weighing it down. A solid film, worth seeing especially for Samuel L. Jackson’s atypical, noteworthy performance as Champ.