Review of Bleed for This (2016) by Spangle — 17 Feb 2017

Bleed for This is just as rousing as one would expect with good performances to boot, but it does wind up being far too cliched to be a great boxing film. As it stands, it is an above average one that manages to be uplifting, powerful, and pure example of feel good cinema amidst the sea of machismo on display in the film. That said, its cliches and beats are all quite predictable and while director Ben Younger's film tells a true story, it remains entirely predictable and never shocks along the way. It is a largely quite palatable film that for those unconvinced by boxing films as a whole, it will hardly produce any converts. For those that enjoy boxing movies, like myself, it is like a decent slice of pizza from the place near campus that people write off as just "drunk food". It is not drunk food though, it is actually pretty okay, I swear.

Starring Miles Teller as Vinnie "The Pazmanian Devil" Paziena, a rough and tough Italian boxer from Providence, Bleed for This goes to great lengths to show how inspiring and unifying his tale is for his family. After losing three bouts in a row, jumping weight classes, and winning his second title belt, Vinnie is in a serious car accident that breaks his neck. Like every proud man before him, he refuses to give up and defies doctors orders to take it easy by working out and making a boxing comeback. He even goes so far as having the screws from his halo - used to stabilize his neck with the screws driven into the skull - removed without anesthetic. We get it, you are tough. Vinnie Paz definitely would frequent The Salty Spitoon from Spongebob, no doubt about that. The high-level of testosterone on display in this film is matched by the excessive sequences in strip clubs, Vinnie's various gorgeous girlfriends (Christine Evangelista mainly), and the shots of the ring girls during boxing matches. The fights ultimately wind up following a sequence of boxing -> bleeding -> boxing -> babe -> pep talk and repeat. That said, the fights still pack all the required tension and cathartic release once the bout is over. In this, the climax reaches a really fever pitch and, though you know the result, it still makes your heart sing with joy.

What does truly benefit Bleed for This is the focus on Paz's family. His father (Ciaran Hinds) is at every match, his mother (Katey Sagal) prays in a very Catholic fashion and refuses to watch, and his sisters and their husbands gather around the television to root him on. Cutting from shots of the fight to the Pazeina household, Younger finds incredibly power in this family unity and gives the film incredible heart. Though Paz's story alone supplies a lot of heart, few boxing movies integrate the family as much as this one, turning Bleed for This into a film that shows the impact a career in boxing has on the family as a whole.

Compared to recent boxing movies such as Creed, however, Bleed for This is hardly as impressive. The boxing scenes are shot pretty typically and the film lacks the feeling of being a spectacle. Rather, it is as if just goes through checking off boxes on the boxing biopic cliche list. Fortunately, the cliches work incredibly well and the film is quite powerful due to its real life story, but it just never feels innovative or compelling for non-athletic reasons. Even films like 2015's Southpaw add in some further depth to its largely straight forward boxing tale with some innovative trauma. Bleed for This, though incredible in real life, feels like every underdog or comeback story about a man told he can never come back. In essence, what I am trying to say, is the film feels like Million Dollar Baby if Hilary Swank boxed again. This is not bad and it is the true story, but it just feels so safe and typical as a result of this.

With strong acting and an uplifting true story, Bleed for This is a film loaded with testosterone and heart, but it follows the tried and true boxing cliches far too closely to be anything more than just another boxing movie about an underdog defeating the incredible odds before him.