Bleed for This

By all accounts, Bleed for This should be a highly emotional film.  However, as told by co-writer and director Ben Younger, the story of boxer Vinny Pazienza (known in the ring as "the Pazmanian Devil") feels overly familiar, featuring stock characters and cliched writing that seems like it was designed to be used as inspirational sound bites in the trailer.  Much like the last inspirational boxing movie we got, Hands of Stone, the movie is well made but lacks emotional impact due to the routine path it takes in telling the story.

The story of how Pazienza came back to fighting after suffering a broken back and paralysis from a near-fatal car crash sounds like the kind of story Hollywood dreams of.  I'm actually surprised it's taken this long for his story to reach the big screen, as this story happened back in the 90s.  I can easily see an emotional drama being made from the struggle he must have gone through.  But, the approach taken here is far too simplistic, and has no real impact.  It just sort of happens by account of Vinny's determination.  I'm sure that was a big part of it, but I also have a hunch it took a lot more.  Inspirational movies such as this don't really work if the main character never seems to be faced with much hardship.  Sure, there are a couple struggles, but the road to recovery for Vinny just seems to be played off as if it were nothing.  We don't get to see as much hardship as we expect.

Vinny is portrayed in the film by Miles Teller, who obviously bulked up considerably for the role.  The first hour or so of the film is devoted to his rise, and how he became a champ in three different weight classes.  But then he takes that fateful car ride with a friend, and after the ensuing accident, the doctors tell him that he will have to go through spinal fusion surgery if he ever wants to walk again someday.  Vinny dismisses this, and becomes determined that he will not only walk again on his own, but also fight again.  This becomes a common thread throughout the film.  Someone tells Vinny he can't do it, he tells them off, and then he goes and does it, usually during the span of a montage.  He wears a device called a "halo", which kind of looks like a medieval torture device, and covers his head in order to his broken neck together.  Its screws and bolts are even inserted into his skull.  Despite all this, he keeps on training with the aid of his coach, Kevin Rooney (played by Aaron Eckhart, unrecognizable with a pot belly and a balding head).

Teller does a great job playing the cocky and brash Rhode Island fighter, and easily is the highlight of the film.  And while the rest of the cast is played by talented actors, nobody gets as much screentime as Teller, so they kind of fade into the background.  One of the key problems of Bleed for This is that we never get a sense for the people in Vinny's life.  They're usually seen sitting at the dinner table, or watching one of his fights on TV.  The closest the movie gets to creating a genuine character is Vinny's father, played here by Ciaran Hinds.  He's always pushed Vinny to fight, and when the accident happens, he blames himself for having encouraged him to fight.  He is effective in his scenes, but at the same time, you wish the screenplay (also by Younger) would give him more to do.  Same goes for Eckhart, whose Rooney seems to have his own demons to battle concerning alcoholism, but it's never fully explored.

The lives of these people are largely unexplored.  We don't really know who they are, or what drives them.  Even Vinny seems somewhat of a mystery, as we never know what drives him to push himself so hard to recover.  The movie as a whole lacks urgency, and almost seems to be going through the anticipated motions, rather than really giving us something to feel.  Even the scenes within the boxing ring seem curiously muted and not very exciting.  This is one of those movies that really should work, but it doesn't, and you sit there wondering why you're not as involved as you feel you should be.  The actors and performances do what they can to lift this material, but you feel like they're doing all the work.  The material should be working with them, instead of forcing them to struggle to hold our attention.

Bleed for This comes across as a hollow exercise in inspirational storytelling, as we learn so little about the drive and feelings of its subject matter.  There is a good and probably great movie to be made off of this story, and Ben Younger has not made it.  He has given us the barest essentials, and nothing more.

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