Vincent Grashaw’s Bang Bang is one of the better sports movies I’ve seen in a long time, and certainly one of the best boxing movies of recent years. In its tone and trajectory, it technically operates as more of a drama, not unlike the minor-league baseball drama Sugar, whereby what the characters learn on their journey is much more important than any game or match. The comeback at the heart of Bang Bang isn’t the one it initially presents, and the film is all the more interesting and memorable for that.
The great Tim Blake Nelson stars as Bernard “Bang Bang” Rozyski, a fictional former featherweight champion from Detroit. “Down on his luck” definitely wouldn’t quite describe Bernard when we first meet him. He’s as misanthropic as any human could possibly be, having cut off most of his personal connections long ago. There are several reasons for this, all of which are revealed slowly throughout the movie. The story kicks off when Bernard’s daughter Jen (Nina Arianda) brings her teenage son Justin (Andrew Liner) to stay with him as she secures a new living situation. Having already seen some of Bernard’s lifestyle and his run-down home, this doesn’t exactly seem like the best idea, but Jen seems out of options, even though we can certainly infer that Bernard’s parenting may not have been the greatest.
Bernard sees a talent for and an interest in boxing from his grandson, and thus starts to train him at a friend’s gym, unbeknownst to Jen. The film uses this hook to dig deeper into Bernard’s psyche, and as prickly as he is, there’s a lot to empathize with as he starts to come out of his self-mandated shell. Nelson is terrific in the part, at times elevating the material and always coming off as authentically angry, but with a genuinely understandable worldview. There is no humanity Nelson can’t find in a character, and Bang Bang presents him with a challenge which would frustrate many great actors, but not him. He’s just so smooth here, equally convincing us of Bernard’s strengths and shortcomings.
One thing that makes the film so compelling is its lack of contrived consequences. Bernard and Justin go through a lot of ups and downs here, but there’s never any needless or unconvincing reconciliations. What you see is a lot of what you get with Bernard, and so, just like him, the film doesn’t feel the need to over-explain itself. You’re either on the movie’s wavelength of rooting for the guy despite his abundance of character flaws, or you’re not, and the film is not going to hold your hand to get you to that place. In that way, it’s as tough and hardscrabble as the portrait it presents of Detroit. At a certain point, these characters have to find redemption not for the sport or the city, but for themselves, even if they don’t know it.
Bang Bang does start a little slowly, and I was worried it was going to follow a more stereotypical trajectory for a sports movie. Rest assured, it’s much smarter than all that. As a character study — especially resting on the shoulders of Nelson — it’s flawless. Perhaps it’s not a total knockout, but from my vantage point, it should be a unanimous decision for any boxing fan or boxing movie fan. | George Napper
