Review of Two Fists, One Heart (2009) by Mitchell P — 02 Feb 2011

This remake of Rocky with funny accents, I mean Two fists one heart is an ok film. Nothing special but there are some brilliant pieces of cinema tucked into this film. One of the scenes I'm hint to is the final fight scene but I'll get to that later.

Rocky, I mean two fists one heart starts with a scene of a father holding his child underwater, though at fist very serene and calming image, when he raises out of the weather the Italian father dunks him back again, bit strange but it sets the tone of a pushy father (Ennio Fantastichini) aand a son (Daniel Alalm) swimming against the tide which honestly is the most compelling aspect of this story. As the film continues the relation ship goes from a strong father son bond to a strained relationship, then reuniting over boxing makes this more emotionally compelling than rocky, while keeping boxing ad the heart of the movie, aptly emulating the title.

Though never explained why, the father switches between Italian and English and after immigrating from Italy (also never explained in depth)and seams to have met a larger group of Sicilian immigrants as if the director was casting rejects from the Godfather trilogy. Antony Argo's thick Australian accent seams out of place in this bar scene but as the film darts between looking like an advertisement for the Australian tourist board and Rocky it brings the characters down to earth and makes the story more believable.

This film also contains a few cameos from comedian Tim Minchin which are brilliant; the scene where they visit his gig is funny and well shot. This scene includes the song "Drowned" by Minchin which is probably the best original song for a movie ever, and also echoes Antony Argo (the protagonist) story of swimming against the fathers tide them going with the flow for an amazing finale.

Though the films romantic aspect falls short to the boxing, it is worth commending the director for not having them make up as most conventional movies do, instead having them split making the story more believable and by not reuniting them, it makes the relation ship of the father and son more predominant which it should be as there are a lot of movies with this dynamic in mainstream cinema.

The finale for the film Rocky and Drago, Sorry Argo and Nico is an intense fight cut with a bar scene starring Tim Minchin and Jessica Marias looking a mixtures of overly involved and strangely disinterested respectively. My only annoyance with this film is he retires at the end, which is too similar to rock at the end, which is too similar to rock for me but the seeing the familial relationship restored masks this little blip in an otherwise good movie.