Resurrecting the Champ Critic Reviews

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 the full review

It's the complexity of Lurie's moral universe that makes it linger in the mind.Read the full review

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 the full review

The cast is generally excellent, but Hartnett in particular comes across as convincingly complicated, alternately reprehensible and sympathetic.Read the full review

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 the full review

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 the full review

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 the full review

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 the full review

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 the full review