Resurrecting the Champ
Yari Film Group Releasing | Release Date: August 24, 2007 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
55
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 28 Critic Reviews
Positive:
14
Mixed:
12
Negative:
2
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
80
Film ThreatZack Haddad
It is great to see a boxing movie that portrays both boxing and Jackson in different lights. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalle
It's the complexity of Lurie's moral universe that makes it linger in the mind. Read full review
75
Charlotte ObserverLawrence Toppman
About a guy who stood on the brink of greatness but, because of one flaw he could never overcome, had to settle for being pretty good before he faded away. Strange, then, that the movie works exactly the same way. Read full review
75
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
Jackson disappears into his role, completely convincing, but then he usually is. What a fine actor. He avoids pitfalls like making Champ a maudlin tearjerker, looking for pity. He's realistic, even philosophical, about his life and what happened to him. Read full review
70
The Hollywood ReporterDuane Byrge
Charged by a knock-out performance from Samuel L. Jackson, this compelling story of manly redemption will deliver a winning boxoffice combination of word of mouth and ultimately step outside the generic ring of sports lore. Read full review
70
Chicago ReaderJ.R. Jones
Treacle takes over in the last act, but most of this fact-based story by screenwriters Michael Bortman and Allison Burnett takes the inspirational sports drama into unexpected and morally complex territory. Read full review
67
Christian Science MonitorPeter Rainer
By skewing the film into a father-son inspirational saga, the filmmakers sell out the best possibilities in their material. Lurie clearly wants Resurrecting the Champ to be "more" than a sports movie, or a newspaper movie. Ironically, he ends up with less. Read full review
67
Seattle Post-IntelligencerWilliam Arnold
It's more intelligent than most Hollywood movies you'll find in the heat of summer, and its saving grace is the quality of its acting, including Jackson's uncompromising turn as the old fighter, and delicious bits by David Paymer and Alan Alda as veteran editors. Read full review
67
The A.V. ClubTasha Robinson
The cast is generally excellent, but Hartnett in particular comes across as convincingly complicated, alternately reprehensible and sympathetic. Read full review
67
Baltimore SunMichael Sragow
Jackson creates a searing study in reverse nobility as a character with a battered, street-poetic presence and subtle powers of sympathy that come into play even when he appears to be a rogue. Read full review
63
Chicago TribuneMichael Phillips
The film is easy to take, though it must be said: It's almost 100 percent blather. Read full review
63
TV Guide MagazineMaitland McDonagh
Lurie's film never fully reconciles the story about newsroom ethics with the sentimental drama about bad dads and bereft sons. Read full review
63
Philadelphia InquirerCarrie Rickey
Struggles to get off the ropes and never quite establishes its rhythm. The film takes place in eternal moral twilight, dark enough to make faces look photogenically poignant, light enough to see the white lies. Read full review
63
PremiereGlenn Kenny
This picture reminded me of one of the things I like best about "All the President’s Men": It doesn’t give a good godd--- about Woodward and Bernstein’s personal lives. Read full review
60
VarietyJohn Anderson
Overly sentimentalized and the execution is slack. If not for Samuel L. Jackson's performance as the ravaged boxer, "Champ" would be of limited interest. Read full review
60
The New York TimesStephen Holden
For Mr. Lurie, who specializes in political subjects, Resurrecting the Champ is an encouraging return to film following the rise and fall of his television series "Commander in Chief." Read full review
60
Los Angeles TimesKevin Crust
Delivers a heckuva story marred by some credibility problems but lands the majority of its punches via subtly powerful performances and a moving undercard of paternal connection. Read full review
50
Village VoiceRobert Wilonsky
This isn't great raw material, though Lurie and his screenwriters try their best to portray Erik as some guilt-ridden evildoer who's perpetrated a great fraud. Read full review
50
Austin ChronicleMarjorie Baumgarten
Stays on its feet through all the rounds, but it never “floats like a butterfly.” Read full review
50
Washington PostStephen Hunter
Hardly anything feels real, but what feels even more unreal is Hartnett with a cloying, sentimental, self-pitying performance. The liveliest thing in the film is the great Jackson, slumming again in a role miles beneath him. Read full review
50
Wall Street JournalJoanne Kaufman
The movie itself -- which deals (not very interestingly) with the issue of journalistic integrity and (very predictably) with father-son relationships -- doesn't pack much of a wallop. Read full review
50
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Jason McBride
The relationship between reporter and subject is always a tricky one, but in Resurrecting the Champ it's downright delusional. Read full review
50
New York Daily NewsJack Mathews
The film itself is a tedious melodrama whose sole saving grace is the performance of Samuel L. Jackson as Tommy Kincaid. Read full review
50
Portland OregonianShawn Levy
Clumsiness follows clumsiness -- the acting, the staging, the details of the plot -- until you reach the point of cool indifference. There's a lot more wrong here than can be corrected in a small space in the newspaper. Read full review
50
Boston GlobeWesley Morris
If most boxing movies are about redemption, Resurrecting the Champ is a boxing movie that goes to exasperating lengths to redeem its boxing writer. Read full review
50
Miami HeraldRene Rodriguez
The thoroughly unconvincing drama Resurrecting the Champ might be based on a true story, but that doesn't mean you're going to believe a single frame of it. Read full review
33
Entertainment WeeklyLisa Schwarzbaum
The gooey sanctity of the bond between fathers and sons all but nullify Jackson's zesty performance. Read full review
25
New York PostLou Lumenick
Well, it smells, all right, but authentic isn't the word I'd use for this maudlin male weepie, a compendium of the worst clichés of sports and journalism movies. Read full review
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