Undisputed
Miramax Films | Release Date: August 23, 2002 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
58
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 29 Critic Reviews
Positive:
15
Mixed:
10
Negative:
4
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
50
ReelViewsJames Berardinelli
The film has two highlights -- a profanity-laced monologue by Peter Falk about boxing and the one-on-one confrontation between Monroe and Chambers in the ring. Read full review
83
Entertainment WeeklyOwen Gleiberman
Undisputed is a shrewd and splendidly volatile B movie structured around a highly original gambit of suspense. Read full review
75
Chicago TribuneMichael Wilmington
There's no denying that Undisputed delivers the action-movie goods, and so do Snipes and Rhames. It should have been more memorable, but at least it doesn't stumble in the ring. Read full review
60
The New York TimesA.O. Scott
Lacks more than subtext: it barely has text. At times, the picture seems to have been edited with a blowtorch. But it gets the job done efficiently and swiftly. Read full review
80
VarietyRobert Koehler
With Undisputed, writer-director Walter Hill is back in contention as one of Hollywood's last defenders of the muscular, no-nonsense genre movie. Read full review
40
TV Guide MagazineKen Fox
Shot through the bars of a barbed-wire topped cage and staged to a pounding soundtrack, the fight is quite a spectacle, but it's ultimately an empty one. Read full review
50
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalle
Has a certain B-movie integrity -- a muscular commitment to grabbing the viewer's eye and keeping things moving. It won't win any awards, but it holds interest. Read full review
63
Charlotte ObserverLawrence Toppman
An unassuming, brief and cheaply entertaining boxing movie. It's long on punching and short on character, but you wouldn't go to a Hill movie to see "Raging Bull." Read full review
67
Portland OregonianShawn Levy
It's professional, smart, quick-footed and snappy -- enviable traits in both a prizefighter and a nice little B-movie. Read full review
30
Wall Street JournalCollin Levey
Mr. Snipes and Mr. Rhames get credit at least for doing their own stunts. By the middle of the film, viewers will take a certain satisfaction in each punch that lands on either of them.
30
L.A. WeeklyDan Fienberg
With flashbulb editing as cover for the absence of narrative continuity, Undisputed is nearly incoherent, an excuse to get to the closing bout (shot through bars and barbed wire in case we forgot the combatants are incarcerated), by which time it's impossible to care who wins. Read full review
50
New York PostLou Lumenick
Basically the Mike Tyson saga reduced to its B-movie essence. Read full review
88
Baltimore SunMichael Sragow
Few directors are able to showcase actors with fast-cutting techniques. Hill is an ace at it because everything about his action is organic. Read full review
67
Seattle Post-IntelligencerWilliam Arnold
Stars are particularly strong. Snipes' fatalism is totally appealing, and Rhames makes a curiously compelling antihero. Read full review
67
Austin ChronicleMarjorie Baumgarten
Again, Hill gives us a world filled with morally complex characters, but that just may be this film's undoing. Read full review
80
The A.V. ClubNathan Rabin
A triumph of craft and narrative economy, the darkly funny Undisputed is as lean, mean, and skillful as its competing heavyweights. Read full review
50
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Rick Groen
Isn't unequivocally bad. Rather, this is what's known in the boxing world as an "opponent" -- shows up on the weekend just to fill out the card, to do battle with its betters, earn a little cash and be completely forgotten come Monday morning. Read full review
80
Washington PostStephen Hunter
It's so gritty it'll get under your fingernails. And it harks back to one of Hill's greatest films from the '70s, "Hard Times." Read full review
60
SalonStephanie Zacharek
The picture is entertaining and brutal (it's a movie about tough convicts fighting, after all), but it can't figure out what kind of movie it would like to be. Read full review
40
Village VoiceMichael Atkinson
The movie is typical Hill-pulp: modestly scaled and efficiently cheesy. Read full review
75
Philadelphia InquirerSteven Rea
A muscular, no-nonsense genre pic (well, two genres: prisons and boxing), Undisputed isn't going to score points for originality, and the climactic bout is a bit of a letdown. But Rhames, as the cocksure millionaire pugilist, seethes brute force. Read full review
30
New Times (L.A.)Gregory Weinkauf
If only director Walter Hill and his coscreenwriter David Giler had scribbled a punch line for all these punches, this rage-in-the-cage redux would be more than merely a limp showcase of machismo so passé as to embarrass your average Australopithecus.
50
Boston GlobeWesley Morris
There are moments when Hill and Giler dare to turn Undisputed into an episode of ''Oz'' - albeit an insipid, belligerence-, and sex-free episode. Read full review
30
Washington PostDesson Thomson
Even by its own please-the-mob standards, this movie is lacking. Read full review
50
Film ThreatMichael Dequina
Falls apart with the slightest nudge -- of thought, that is. Read full review
75
New York Daily NewsJack Mathews
Offers nothing new to the long tradition of boxing films. But Hill's reverence for the classic form and the stone-cold performances of Rhames and Snipes propel the whole thing forward with a prefight buildup that's more fun -- and probably more honest -- than the awkward attempts at macho showmanship we get from real fighters these days. Read full review
63
Miami HeraldRene Rodriguez
Isn't exactly memorable, and as far as its prison setting goes, it has nothing on HBO's infinitely more brutal "Oz." But as late-summer time killers go, you could do worse. Read full review
90
Los Angeles TimesKevin Thomas
A compelling entertainment because of Hill and co-writer David Giler's adroit cinematic storytelling skills and the powerful presence of Wesley Snipes and Ving Rhames, whose talent and intelligence are as impressive as their physiques. Read full review
75
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
There is a kind of pleasure to be had from its directness, from its lack of gimmicks, from its classical form. And just like in the Warners pictures, there is also the pleasure of supporting performances from character actors who come onstage, sing an aria, and leave. Read full review
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