Bleed For This packs punch
The incredible comeback story of underdog boxer Pazienza
At this point, there’ve been so many boxing movies that we really are hoping someone finds a unique approach.
Bleed For This is not that movie. It is still a worthwhile watch, however, if only for the unbelievable comeback story it resurrects from faded memory.
A comeback of sorts by its director — Ben Younger, who took a decade off from Hollywood — Bleed For This is a straight, chronological telling of the story of Rhode Island boxer Vinny Pazienza (a.k.a. The Pazmanian Devil), one that overcomes its tropes on the calibre of its cast.
Vinnie’s story would be worthy enough for the fact that he won titles in three weight classes after seeming washedup. But the third title came after Pazienza broke his neck in a car accident and was told he might never walk again.
A bulked-up Miles Teller brings all the cockiness this natural three-act narrative requires. Younger’s script picks up Vinnie at his first career-crisis, as a hard-partying womanizer struggling to keep his weight down and being punished in the ring.
A fattened-up Aaron Eckhart steps in as Kevin Rooney, a similarly washed-up manager and Vinny’s improbable second chance. His reinvention rubs him up against Vinny’s dad and de facto manager (Ciaran Hinds).
Even if you don’t know the real-life story, the arc seems so familiar, there is little emotional investment in his underdog tale. Newly crowned light middleweight Vinny suffers a catastrophic injury after a night of celebration. A hairsbreadth from paralysis, he has a brace screwed into his skull.
All of this plays pretty much as it presumably happened — including Vinnie’s secret basement training sessions when he was supposed to be relatively still. If anything elevates Bleed For This as a movie, it’s the family portrayals, including Hinds and an oddly-cast Katey Sagal as the mom, almost mute with fear through much of the drama.