The sport of boxing may be on the ropes, but it isn’t stopping Hollywood from churning out new fight features every few years.
But it doesn’t matter if it’s Rocky Balboa or Micky Ward, the character in the new drama “The Fighter,” boxing movies drop their gloves for the same storytelling tics.
In honor of “The Fighter,” starring Mark Wahlberg and Christian Bale as boxing brothers from Beantown, WWTW presents the top 5 boxing movie cliches:
- Slow-motion shots: Yes, directors often fall back on slow motion sequences to highlight a character or ramp up the adrenaline. But can we have one boxing movie where we don’t see a punch that takes about a half hour to land?
- Whale Music/Sound: A tip of the cap to Brother WWTW who coined this term. The Whale sounds often arrive during the slow motion sequences – the soundtrack reduced to a blur reminiscent of how underwater creatures chat – think “Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home” and those humpback whales. Even the characters’ voices get sucked up in the vortex, like Talia (“Yo, Adrian”) Shire warbling “stop the fight” ad nauseum.
- The Reaction Shots: Aren’t boxing movies exciting enough? Why do they always have to break away to the fighter’s hometown bar – or his family gathered around the antiquated TV set watching the action?
- The Training Montage: Yes, boxers have to get in shape before stepping into the ring. But isn’t there a way to shake up the training scenes? The “Rocky” films are the biggest offenders here, although any time you can slip in a cheesy ’80s anthem most, if not all, is forgiven.
- Watchers’ Choice: What have I missed?
(Photo: Left to right: Mickey O’Keefe plays himself and Mark Wahlberg plays Micky Ward in “The Fighter.” Photo credit: JoJo Whilden.)
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{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
Oh, I can come up with another ten by myself
(1) all fights end in clean-cut KOs — there are no close decisions, no questionable stoppages, Eugenia Charles et al is never a judge;
(2) the rise-to-the-top montage of a series of (1)s, in which the rising star rarely gets a scratch;
(3) trainers are always crusty or otherwise “characters” who always come through in the clutch;
(4) the hero fighter can get his ass kicked nonstop and never be too tired or spent or hurt to rally for the last-round KO, which is always covered by (1);
(5) the hero, as an exemplar of the martial virtues, has to face some hedonistic threat to the Spartan ethos, which is making him soft — in the form of booze, nightclubs, dames (OK … maybe not making him “soft” … har-har-har);
(6) fighters are always poor or working-class (though this is a case of cliche-because-it’s-true);
(7) guy gets into boxing as a result of an out-of-the-ring fight or altercation (again, this actually does sometimes happen — Ali, Marciano);
(8) cuts play no roles in fighters’ fighting and the outcome; cuts play a huge role in fighters’ make-up;
(9) arenas are always smoke-filled, even in 2010 and the era of smoking Nazism;
(10) punches are never slipped or blocked or rolled with or land glancingly; they always either connect flush with FULL POWER!!! or miss wildly with full follow-through into thin air
What bores me is the slow-motion Sweat-shot, where gallons of persperation flies throughout the air after a blow lands as if it were high art. “Raging Bull” did it, so please Hollywood, stop pretending this is mandatory for all boxing flicks into eternity.
Great additions! Maybe I should have done a Top 20
Oh, you and I both forgot THE most obvious.
The actors usually can’t fight convincingly. Punches are rarely thrown correctly or in combination, and as often as not are arm swings, particularly when going for the coup de grace
The manager who’s always ready to throw in the towel when things look bleak in the last round, until the boxer refuses to let him.
That’s true, and it also applies to the vast majority of martial arts/hand-to-hand combat sequences of all types, but it isn’t a cliche. Or, if it is, so are all other displays of incompetence by supposedly skilled people in movies.