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This is a feel good movie that contains excellent acting performances. The central character is Jerry Farro, played by Adam Corolla. The soon to be 40 Jerry Farro, had prior experience as a talented fighter in the Golden Gloves when he was 19 and at that point had Olympic potential, but drifted away from the sport for other endeavors of his youth. Note here that Adam Corrolla who plays this character does not look 40 but at best mid 30’s or even younger. Jerry Farro, is now a skilled carpenter whose side job is a boxing instructor to a yuppie like crowd at a fancy gym. His nickname the Hammer could be from his carpentry skills or is it from his hammering left in the boxing ring? Some of his clients in the boxing class are female who are doing it for the aerobics and conditioning. Jerry appears to at first have a wife but we later learn it is a live in girlfriend. He works as a carpenter with a Mexican buddy who is portrayed by Ozzie Castillo who plays the character of Oswald Sanchez. Oswald is Jerry’s buddy who helps him throughout the movie and works with him in the as well in the carpentry positions. Jerry, has a row with the lead contractor on a major mansion building project and the net of this is that he and Oswald are fired as a team. This is the only scene in the movie that has a touch of violence. From there, Jerry goes to the gym and gets a dare to get in the boxing ring with some boxers who are training under the tutelage of Coach Bell, played by Tom Quinn in the other part of the gym. He gets into the ring to start with a former national ranked top boxer, who is only now off the national charts due to a jail term. He surprisingly knocks him out. Coach Bell, then tells Jerry if he gets in shape, he has a chance to make the 2008 Olympics, but he needs to lose almost 20 pounds getting down to 178 from somewhere in the 190’s as he isn’t really overweight but not it top boxing shape. In the meantime his live in girlfriend comes to the conclusion that the relationship isn’t working and that basically he isn’t successful enough nor is there evidence forthcoming that he will be based on his personal stagnation of which the firing gives further evidence of. She leaves him for good. In the meantime, there is a mutual liking at the level of friendship and light friendly banter between him and one of his students in the boxing class who is a pleasant looking women, named Lindsay Pratt player by Heather Juergenson. She seems to key in with his dry humor right off the bat and there is a cautious chemistry between them at the outset. She is a very busy public defender as a dedicated lawyer and certainly represents the more pleasant type of women to be with in terms of conversation and not getting a hard time for being less than a resounding success despite being pretty successful herself. As the story builds, Jerry needs to get in better shape if he is ever to have a chance of making the Olympics. His first attempts at losing the 15 or so pounds results in a 3 point weight gain, but this symbolizes the idea that his life has gone ever so slightly backwards and the tilt seems to be unfavorable. Then coach Bell admonishes him, that he is one of those guys who always gives 95 percent but holds back something and this is a key line in the movie, that the very best effort may not be forthcoming. The backdrop is that Jerry, doesn’t take everything 100 percent seriously as in part maybe a defense mechanism but also because he gets by on some excess of talent so he doesn’t have to pour it all in the pot to get things going. It is interesting that his previous professional fight was 1987 and now it is 2007, described as a 20 year interval or hiatus, yet his talent for the sport quickly resurfaces despite the lengthy interval and you can see in Marlon Brando parlance, “He could have been a contender" and now maybe he will be again. He main cohort in training is Robert Brown, played awesomely by Harold House who gives a riveting performance. Robert Brown is the young and talented fighter who is being groomed by the famous trainer for the Olympics and at the beginning is the best bet for an Olympic gold. The backdrop of all this is the Olympic boxing failures in recent Olympics by the U.S. team so it is all the more critical to find someone and additional boxers who can not only make the Olympics but actually contend and even win the gold. In the meantime, Jerry buckles down to intense training including outdoor scenes where he is running all over the place in some beautiful L.A. country scenery. His buddy, Oswald helps him and as Jerry is doing pushups on the park lawn, Oswald is giving instructions on the going further up-tempo with the workup workout while eating a hefty meal. We all know people like this, that run 10 miles to work at 5 in the morning yet it does surprise you to hear of that hidden intensity that isn’t so much told by what they say but about what they do and did and Jerry begins to walk the walk while he never talked the talk either before or after. As the movie progresses, a friendship forms between Robert Brown and Jerry and Jerry doesn’t display his truest feelings easily in his hopes for this boxing comeback as he deflects with his dry wit against the possible letdown of an outright failure. I don’t want to give away the movie from here but one thing to look for is a surprisingly powerful surge of emotions towards the end of this movie and a great performance from Ozzie Castillo as Oswald Sanchez. The crowd at Tribeca was riveted by his performance and he was on hand afterwards and people were coming up to him congratulating him on the great job and this is a potential Hollywood star on the horizon. There were a couple of themes that were captured quite well in this movie. One was that it is one of the rare movies that takes this year of 2007 and gives a positive futuristic feel to the era we are in right now, something we really see for example in the news, as when the 2008 Beijing Olympics were being discussed there were great aerial views of L.A. county and you almost got that retro 60’s feel that you get from movies from that era where there was a degree of optimism and sunshine towards the more immediate future with an extension of the good possibilities also in the reality of the probable in the more extended view of the future from where people were standing then. It was interesting that the movie soared into optimism for the characters, yet in the case of Jerry, he had almost a 20 year gap in fighting at all and yet there was a recapturing for him to the extent that he surpassed previously known talents and the new beginning felt like that not only for him but for the era itself and for all the central characters of the movie and that this movie captured this feeling in a relatively short amount of screen time near the end is almost Oscar worthy. The other things to look for in this movie are the themes of friendship and using truth in the friendship more as more of an encouragement to break through the facades that tend to leave us all standing still or drawing back and the script itself was quite smart. An example of this was when Robert Brown began to worry that Jerry himself was going to be tough to beat and coach Bell says, you want to win an Olympic Gold and you’re worried about Jerry? This movie is quite interesting especially for anyone who has had a long gap on something the wished they had done and maybe there is a chance to recapture or bring to the surface again these long buried talents and find new beginnings that can soar with optimism.
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