Resurrecting the Champ (2007)

4/10

Nothing can wrench this movie from the grip of a saccharine, formulaic script full of plattitudes and divided allegiances.

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08/26/08

5/10

Even though the melodrama gets ratcheted up at the end, there were plenty of moments I found myself cheering for the Champ.

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03/03/08

3/5

a contender that doesn't quite take a championship belt.

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02/29/08

2/4

Resurrecting the Champ is a specialty of director Rod Lurie, a civics lecture disguised as a film.

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11/01/07

N/A

Success, adulation, temptation, disgrace, redemption -- it's all there, expressed mostly through the predictably non-expressive Hartnett.

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10/23/07

B+

A two-star execution of a four-star goal, and is therefore worthy of a viewing.

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10/22/07

7/10

Slow in the father-son heart to heart parts, Champ brings it all back home in the end with a great story line and saving performances by Jackson, Alda and Hatcher

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09/11/07

2.5/4

Like a championship fight, a movie is often reviewed in rounds. This being said, I think I'll go the safe route and call the film a draw.

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09/10/07

2.5/4

The script and director Rod Lurie just can't get the parts to meld.

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09/06/07

2.5/4

It's hard to have a genuine emotional response when the manipulative mechanics are all too strongly felt.

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09/05/07

6/10

Lurie's film actually works better as a study of a reporter coping with ambition and ethics as opposed to a story about Kernan and Champ or Kernan and his son.

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09/02/07

3/5

...never becomes as compelling as it promises to be...

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08/31/07

3/4

Everything is about winning respect versus earning it. This film earned mine. I'm glad I took a chance on it. By the look of my theater, not many others did.

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08/30/07

3.5/4

Reporters also refer to what they write as "my story."

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08/29/07

3/4

Towering over the entire picture is Jackson, who takes a showy role and invests it with so much humanity that it's impossible not to feel deeply for the character every step of the way.

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08/29/07

A

This is a story that anyone should be able to relate to because we all fall short of perfection.

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08/29/07

3.5/5

Without Jackson -- and a little help from Alan Alda and Peter Coyote -- this would be another in the long line of instantly forgettable Josh Hartnett vehicles.

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08/29/07

70/100

The highs (Samuel L. Jackson's performance) and lows (Josh Hartnett's performance and the film's semi-successful moralizing) balance out as something awfully close to a draw.

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08/28/07