Review of Chuck (2017) by Dominique D — 03 Oct 2017

It's been a while since the last good boxing movie. So this is about an athlete that you don't know that you know: Chuck Wepner. He's the inspiration behind the character of Rocky Balboa, and it is now his turn for his story to be told.

Now I love Rocky, it just took me far longer than it should have taken any self-respecting film critic to have watched it (and I still haven't had the chance to watch all the sequels). I heard good things about Chuck, and I will start off by saying that I think that this is excellent and lived up to everything that I was expecting.

Now while I admittedly have not found the time to watch Schreiber's claim to fame in the television series Ray Donovan, all I can do is shrug my shoulders. We are living in a golden age of television, and I don't have the time to watch all of the shows that I want to watch, never mind shows that I have heard are good in passing.

That said, I already knew that Schreiber has the talent, but I've never seen him give a performance like the one he delivers here. He truly became Wepner to the point that I didn't see the actor anymore when he was onscreen.

He's a New Jersey boy through and through, and he's got personality. He talks trash a lot, and it is wildly different than what you see in today's match-ups (just look at McGregor/Mayweather promos, it is more like a Jerry Springer show now).

The story is fun and moves at a good clip, and then you realize that there is still about an hour left to go after his big Rocky fight in his life is over. That is when you get to the meat of what this movie is at its heart: a drama with real emotion.

When you get past the small amount of glory this man has experienced, it is plain to see what a mess he is, he just happened to have this one good thing that he was lucky enough to experience. Because it is so much fun in the beginning, you genuinely grow to care for this character, so when you watch him self-destruct, you have a palpable reaction.

I really got into this a lot, and I don't really have any big negative points against this to bring up. I think Chuck is one of the best surprises of the year, and I highly recommend it.