the Opponent

Thinking outside the box
Before I first saw this movie I was expecting a Lifetime channel movie
of the week, but it turned out to be a little better than that. In fact
I thought it had a hint of independent movieness about it or it could have
been the small budget. Maybe it was both. Kind of a quiet movie, small
cast, and urban Detroit setting. Erika portrays a woman, Patty, caught
up in an abusive relationship and struggles to find her way out of it.
Hooking up with a Tommy, a would-be amateur boxer who also runs a boxing
gym, Patty asks him to help train her. Her reasoning? Maybe to take out
her frustrations over being defenseless and punched out by her boyfriend
or to somehow seek her own independence. Patty's boxing interest takes
off and although becomes a novelty at first, through the magic of
film she ends up in the championship bout of the year.

The chemistry between the Tommy and Patty was nice and restrained at first
to allow the...

Better than just OK, but far from great
Erika Eleniak is in this film; a confession...having seen Baywatch and Under Siege, I bought it for that reason. She is beautiful and sexy, but she also can act(which wasn't brought out in Baywatch...shocking). In this little film, she and the film reach a middle level of quality which is about all it, and she, can achieve. A small plot about female fighters, Erika is well cast as a strong, robust female who can be "macho" (i.e. fighting) without losing her feminine qualities. To sum up, if you think Erika is great, or at least "hot", then buying this film at a reduced or "used" price(as I did) is worthwhile; she is featured well in the film. If you are looking for the penultimate film on female fighters, then skip this film, skip Clint Eastwood's depressing Oscar winner on the subject, and buy the little seen but well regarded "Fight Night" also available at Amazon. If is excellent and leagues ahead of this film.

This is another "Knockout" movie....
..as in similar to the movie "Knockout" and not really a great boxing movie. It's more of a cute girl doing boxing. Erika Eleniak looks to be in great shape for the movie. It's too bad the script is really boring that you can't get more into it. Even with Erika in great shape, she's no boxer which becomes quite apparent during her training and fight sequences. Sloppy, sloppy, sloppy. As always, they choose a real female boxer as an opponent but don't spend enough time training the star to complement the adversary. About the only good refreshing thing about this movie was the coach and his gym. It was interesting to see a young coach and his bviews about boxing and training. Don't know if that's enough to carry this movie for some. It wasn't for me. Nope, definitely can't recommend this movie unless it goes to deep discount, and you're just bored at 12 AM.

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