Review of Bleed for This (2016) by Andrew J — 03 Apr 2018

Miles gets himself a pair of abs and no Oscar gold to go along.

BLEED FOR THIS.

This year alone I watched 220 movies, 111 of which in the movie theatre. First, yes, I may have a problem and second, some weeks ago I got myself thinking after watching a Nerdwriter video called "The Epidemic of Passable Movies". How many of the movies I watched last year were actually passable? As it turns out, a lot of them! Unfortunately, in order to appreciate a great movie, you have to know what passable and bad movies look like. That creates an habit of spotting which is which and that's why that, for me, a review of somebody who watches a lot of film, reflects on them and keeps coming back to the classics, is more credible than one of somebody who just watches a modern movie occasionally. Like Nerdwriter explains, there are a lot of things that ultimately make a movie passable and the overuse of cliche is one of them. This movie offers great performances by Miles Teller and specially by Aaron Eckhart but everything else is just unexceptional, from the score to the script. The director shoots the film collecting what has been used the most in boxing movies. For example, despite being the same actor and the same drive to succeed despite all odds, the way the gifted Damien Chazelle captures mental collapse can't even be compared to this. Also, this is not a genre to which I adhere intuitively so only excellence and innovation (Creed for example) would lead me to be passionate about it. This overall averageness is sometimes picked up by audiences and they won't show up. Hence, the $5 mill total gross.

My wish for 2017 is that filmmakers won't do so many passable offerings and that my patience to see them increases.

WARNING: My point of reference is the Oscars, not January 1st so my tops of the year will come by Oscar week.